Commercial Coal Mining

For management and reallocation of cancelled coal blocks, Government has promulgated ‘the Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Ordinance, 2014’ on 21.10.2014 to ensure smooth transfer of rights, title and interest in the mines along with its land and other associated mining infrastructure to the new allottees to be selected through an auction or allotment to government company, as the case may be. In order to provide sufficient coal to small consumers, medium and small enterprises, cottage industries, household consumers and to overcome the acute shortage of the country and augment its production; the Ordinance has also amended the Coal Mines (Nationalization) Act, 1973 to insert section 3(A) and the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957 to insert section 11(A), thereby removing the restriction of end use from the eligibility to undertake coal mining, in the national interest. As per the provisions of the Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Ordinance, 2014, a company or a joint venture company formed by two or more companies are eligible to carry on coal mining operations in India, in any form either for own consumption, sale or for any other purpose in accordance with the permit, prospecting licence or mining lease, as the case may be. The company has the same meaning as assigned to it in Clause 20 of Section 2 of the Companies Act, 2013 i.e. a company incorporated under the Companies Act, 2013 or under any previous company law. This was stated by Sh. Piyush Goyal, Minister of State (I/C) for Power, Coal & New and Renewable Energy in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha today.

The Minister further stated that the coal reserves are explored on regular basis in order to increase production of coal in the country. As a result of exploration carried out, a cumulative total of 3,01,564 million tonnes of Geological Reserves of coal have so far been estimated in the country as on 01.04.2014. As per information available, 100.6 million tonnes of coal has been imported in the country upto the month of September 2014 during the year 2014-15, the Minister added.

RM/RS- USQ3217 – LS