Coal Ministry to meet dry fuel reserves allottees, hold talks on enhancing production

Coal Ministry will hold an interactive session with allottees of dry fuel reserves on April 12, which would be aimed at ensuring continuous supply to various stakeholders, especially for the power sector.

The session, to be chaired by coal secretary Amrit Lal Meena, will highlight the significant reforms implemented by the ministry to make the coal sector more appealing.

The ministry officials will interact with allottees of coal blocks, which have been given away in the recent rounds of auctions for commercial mining.

It will also solicit feedback and suggestions from all the stakeholders in order to expand the domestic coal production, lower the need for imported coal, and facilitate ease of doing business in the country.

The ministry will also review the actual coal production for the fiscal 2022-23 as well as the production targets for the year 2023-24, official sources said.

Coal Ministry has achieved 115.77 million tonnes of coal production from the captive and commercial coal mines in 2022-23.

Government had launched the first ever tranche of commercial auctions of 38 coal mines on June 18, 2020 under CM(SP) Act, 2015 and MMDR Act, 1957.

Till now, six tranches of commercial coal mines auction have been completed and a total of 87 coal mines have been successfully auctioned having cumulative peak rated capacity (PRC) of 220.52 million tonnes per annum with annual revenue generation estimated at Rs 33,231 crore, considering production at aggregated PRC.