coal mines’ auctions, in case of less than two Technically Qualified Bidders, for a mine, the first attempt of auction for that mine shall be annulled and the second attempt of auction may be initiated with the approval of the Competent Authority. 

However, in case of only one bidder again in the second attempt, the matter will be referred to the ECoS for appropriate decision with respect to allocation of mine. 

Till date, 11 coal mines have been allocated to different bidders with the approval of  ECoS based on single bidafter 2ndattempt of auction, on the basis of transparency in auction, reasonability of offer and number of rounds the mines have been offered.  It may be noted that a large number of mines offered received no bid despite repeated offering during last seven rounds.

The objective of launching the commercial coal mines’ auction was to increase coal production in the country to meet coal requirement of industries and not revenue maximization, thereby making India Aatmanirbhar in coal.  

Further, in case of a bidder being declared as the Successful Bidder for a particular coal mine, it has to pay the royalty (@14%), DMF, NMET, GST and GST compensation cess (@ Rs 400) etc. to the respective State Governments in addition to revenue share. Also, coal mining is a high capital intensive industry and huge amount is expended on operationalization of the coal mines which subsequently results in the funds being utilized for development and employment generation in the country.