Team News Riveting
New Delhi, June 26
As part of its commitment to assisting India in meeting its energy demands and actively pursuing Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat, the Ministry of Coal organised stakeholder consultation in New Delhi to promote “Funding of Commercial Coal Mines in India”.
The event was chaired by M Nagaraju, Additional Secretary and Nominated Authority, Ministry of Coal and attended by Coal Mine Allocatees and senior officials from Banks/Financial Institutions (FIs).
Nagaraju inaugurated the meet commenting on the global industry scenario and outlook of coal sector in India, emphasized the imminent need of financing coal mines. He stated that out of 87 auctioned mines till date, only a few have been successful in receiving financing support and urged the Banks/FIs to expedite the financing in the coal sector.
Presentations were made by Ajitesh Kumar, Director, Ministry of Coal on commercial coal mine auctions process and extant enablers for funding commercial coal mines and Ashok Sharma, CGM, State Bank of India (PFSBU) on SBI’s commercial coal funding policy. Dr. Sanjay Kumar, Director, Department of Financial Services (DFS) also addressed the meet and showcased the support of DFS, Ministry of Finance to facilitate coal mine funding.
The meet focused on major concerns pertinent to financing of commercial coal mining and solicited feedback/suggestions from all stakeholders. Given coal mining is capital intensive, the Coal Mine allocatees highlighted possible bottlenecks being faced in availing financial assistance (high cash margin in BG issuance, stringent pre-disbursement conditions, negative outlook of coal sector in banking fraternity etc.) and requested relaxations in the same.
The Banks expressed their willingness and assured flexibility to finance coal mines subject to demonstration of, among other things, project viability, equity infusion visibility etc. in presence of detailed business plan.
Meanwhile, the Ministry announced the opening of bids for the 7th round of commercial coal mine auction.
The auction process of 103 coal/lignite mines for sale of coal under 7th round of commercial coal mine auctions was launched by the Nominated Authority, Ministry of Coal on March 29, 2023. The last date for submission of online Technical Bids for all the coal mines is 1200 hours on June 27, 2023 and offline submission is 1600 hours on June 27, 2023.
As part of the auction process, Technical Bids comprising of online and offline bid documents will be opened on June 28, 2023, 10:00 am onwards at New Delhi, in the presence of the bidders.
