Team News Riveting
New Delhi, November 7
Adani Enterprises Ltd on Saturday emerged as the highest bidder for the Gondulpara coal mine in Jharkhand on the sixth day of commercial coal mining auction.
Vedanta Ltd and Birla group’s EMIL Mines and Mineral Resources Ltd were also in the race for the coal block. Only one coal mine of Jharkhand was put up for auction on day six of commercial coal mine auction today.
Adani Enterprises made a final offer of 20.75 per cent revenue sharing for Gondulpara coal mine that has geological reserves of 176.33 million tonnes, the coal ministry said in a statement.
The mine will generate annual revenue of Rs 520.92 crore, the coal ministry said.
This would be the second coal mine that Adani Group had won in the on-going commercial coal mining auction.
Stratatech Mineral Resources, an arm of Adani Enterprises Limited (AEL), had earlier won Dhirauli coal mine located in Madhya Pradesh. Now, the Company would have two fully-owned coal mines in India.
The first private mining company, which pioneered the concept of Mine Developer and Operator (MDO), owns only Carmichael coal mine that too abroad in Australia.
In June, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the auction process for 41 coal blocks for commercial mining, a move that opened the coal sector to private players. While a total of 38 coal mines were initially put on auction by the coal ministry, a total of 19 mines are being bid out under the 11th tranche of auction under the Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act, 2015, located across Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha and Maharashtra.
There were initially 76 bids from 42 companies for 23 coal mines, with the remaining 15 mines not getting any bids. One more block Gare Palma IV/7 will be put on sale on Monday which is the last day of auction of mines.
