The coal ministry is planning to come up with a scheme to permit coal block allottees to surrender mines that they are not in a position to develop because of technical reasons.

The proposed scheme will allow the surrender of blocks without the imposition of financial penalty or penalty on a merit basis after examining the proposal by a scrutiny committee.

“To expedite production from allocated coal blocks and for ease of doing business, a scheme will be prepared to allow the surrender of coal blocks to those allocattees where the present allocattee is not in a position to develop the coal block due to technical reasons,” according to the coal ministry’s agenda for 2021-22.

Coal blocks surrendered under this scheme will immediately be offered for auction for commercial mining for putting the block to production early.

The move would help to boost the production of coal from the mines allocated through auction route.

In another step to meet the increased demand for coal in the country, a scheme is being formulated to allow allottees to sell up to 50 per cent of the produced fuel after meeting its captive needs, the coal ministry said. The incentive to allottees will spur them to produce more coal and sell in the market.

India’s total coal production registered a marginal decline of 2.02 per cent to 716 million tonnes(mt) during the last fiscal year.

The country had produced 731mt of coal in 2019-20, according provisional statistics of 2020-21 of the coal ministry.

Of the total coal production, 671.29mt was non-coking coal and the remaining44.78mt was coking coal.

The public sector produced 685.951mt while the remaining 30.133mt was produced by the private sector.

CIL show

State-owned CIL’s coal production registered a marginal rise to 40.7 million tonnes in September.

The development assumes significance in the wake of country’s power plants grappling with coal shortages.

Coal India Ltd’s (CIL) production had stood at 40.5 million tonnes(mt) in September 2020, according to a BSE filing.

CIL’s production in the April-September 2021 period increased 5.8 per cent to 249.8mt, compared with 236mt in the year-ago period, the filing said.

The company’s offtake also increased to 48.3 mt last month, over 46.7mt in the corresponding month of the previous financial year, it added.

Its offtake in the April-September 2021 period also increased to 307.7mt over 255.1mt in the year-ago period.