Sixty-seven mines so auctioned include the highest 20 in Jharkhand, followed by 14 in Chhattisgarh, 11 in West Bengal, 9 in Maharashtra, 7 in Odisha and 5 in Madhya Pradesh.
Disclosing this in a written reply in the Lok Sabha on Thursday, Power and Coal Minister Piyush Goyal frankly admitted that no time limit has been fixed for completing allocation of all 204 coal blocks. He said the auctions completed so far yielded 3.35 lakh crore, besides the consumer gaining from power tariff reduction to the tune of Rs 69,311 crore from the captive mines allotted to the power plants.
The mines so far auctioned include 29 given to the end-users like power plants and the steel and cement factories. Nine of them went to the power units while the remaining went to the coal-based steel and cement sectors.
The minister pointed out that the auction proceeds and the royalty per tonne will go to the state governments. For instance, there are five such captive mines in Madhya Pradesh yielding Rs 42,811 crore to the state government during the lease period while three such mines in Maharashtra will yield Rs 2736 crore to the state government.
