Coal India on Wednesday said the common electronic auction platform cleared by the cabinet last month would create a level playing field. There will be a uniform price structure for all consumers, while a large number of buyers will eliminate cartelisation.

The cabinet allowed Coal India to offer non linkage coal through a common e-auction window catering to both power plants and non regulated consumers in the place of sectoral auctions.

The first e-auction was conducted on March 3, 2022 with two Coal India subsidiaries — Northern Coalfields and Eastern Coalfields — offering nearly 5.2 lakh tonnes. Coal India said the entire offering under the auction was booked.

The miner said the e-auction of coal was now mode agnostic: the company will not specifically mention the transportation mode of coal, excolliery. Earlier, the mode for coal booked under different auctions used to be specified.

The customers, however had the option to choose their preferential mode — rail or road, with rail the default mode.

Coal India has set up a committee under a general manager of the marketing and sales division at the corporate level to remove any hurdles arising out of the migration to the modified system.

“The big upshot is discovery of the true market price for coal with the removal of the segmentation. Previously, the same coal used to fetch different prices in different e-auction windows. Another point in favour of the new system is increased transparency with all the offered coal placed in a single basket. Earlier coal companies had the discretion of separate offers for different windows.” said an official of Coal India.

As all e-auction coal will now be placed in the same basket, the bidder will have more choice and as a result bookings are likely to increase, Coal India said.