No green clearance to coal mines identified for auction

07 Jan 2013 Evaluate

Raising doubts over the proposed competitive bidding for captive blocks, the environment ministry has turned down the coal ministry's request for grant of 'in-principle' clearances to mines identified for auction. According to the environmental ministry, in-principle environment and forest clearances to mines, which are to be auctioned, cannot be accorded to the environmental ministry guidelines and thus it is legally not enforceable.

Environment clearance is given by ministry of environmental and forest and forest clearance is provided by respective state governments. While, coal ministry had earlier expressed the hope that for auctioning of captive coal blocks the differences with various ministries on the proposed bidding norms would be resolved.

Earlier coal secretary S K Srivastava had said that unresolved issues include getting 'in-principle' environment clearance to the blocks on offer, arriving at a benchmark floor price and offering discounted prices to sectors like power. He also said that some ministries are in favour of auction after getting certain approvals, like green clearances, for the mines to be sold.

Amid alleged irregularities in allocating coal blocks to various firms for their captive consumption in the past, the government had decided to allocate such blocks through auction route only and identified 54 such blocks to be allotted both through auction and government dispensation route. The government asked CRISIL to provide a report on the methodology to determine the reserve price for bidding of the blocks, which submitted its report in October, suggested preparing a robust feasibility report of all the 54 blocks and using Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) method for valuation of the blocks.

© 2026 The Alchemists Ark Pvt. Ltd. All rights reserved. MoneyWorks4Me ® is a registered trademark of The Alchemists Ark Pvt. Ltd.

×