Government reforms push for coal sector- Auction process of new coal mines have been launched

On Tuesday, the ministry of coal launched the auction process of 40 new coal mines in which 21 new mines are under the coal mines Act 2015 and 19 are under the Tranche three of mines and minerals Act 1957.

The ministry told that the step has been taken following the successful auction of 28 coal mines in the first two tranches and there must be a total of 88 coal mines on offer at present. Total geographical resources of around 55 billion tonnes of coal are offered from these 88 mines among which 57 are fully explored mines and 31 are partially explored mines. There are four coking coal mines on offer. India is presently one of the lowest in terms of per capita consumption of power as compared to the developed countries and the power of demand of the country is expected to be doubled by the year 2040.