The Centre on Monday has announced a fresh round of auctions for the 11 coal mines that were offered for commercial mining earlier but could not be sold as they received just a single bid.

These were the mines which were offered in the first attempt launched on March 25 this year and had fetched single bids, the coal ministry said in a statement.

The move comes at a time of a power crisis on account of a coal shortage.

“The nominated authority of the ministry of coal has launched today the second attempt of auction process for eleven coal mines (4 mines under the Tranche 12 of CM(SP) Act and 7 mines under the Tranche 2 of MMDR Act) earmarked for sale of coal in accordance with the rules prescribed under these Acts,” a government statement said.

Out of these 11 mines, six are fully explored and five are partially explored.

The auction will be held online through a two-stage process, on the basis of percentage revenue share.

The key features of the sale include ease in participation with no restriction for prior coal mining experience, full flexibility in utilisation, optimised payment structures, efficiency promotion through incentives for early production and use of clean coal technology.

The sale of the tender document shall start from September 27. The coal ministry had earlier said it had executed agreements with eight successful bidders after the auction of second tranche of coal mines for commercial mining.

The mines have been successfully auctioned with the winning percentage of revenue share ranging from 6 per cent to 75.5 per cent with an average per cent revenue share of 30 per cent.

The e-auction was conducted in the first week of August.

In the first attempt of auction under 11th tranche of auction under the Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act 2015 and under first tranche of auction under the MMDR Act 1957, out of the 38 coal mines, 19 were successfully auctioned.

Out of the remaining mines, four coal which had fetched single bid in the first attempt were put up for re-auction in a second attempt with the same terms and conditions but with the highest initial offer received in the first annulled attempt of auction as the floor price for the second attempt.

The coal ministry had launched the auction process of 38 coal mines in the first tranche of auction for sale of coal for commercial mining.