The Ministry of Coal has cancelled 10 coal blocks following the decision of inter ministerial group recommending to deallocate 29 mines. According to the Coal Ministry, the decision has been considered after pondering in to several facts.
The 18 companies which comes under the deallocation of these 10 blocks include Adani Power, Jindal Steel and Power Ltd, Rungta Mines and a joint venture between Tata and South African Sasol. About eight blocks are part of the 61 captive acreages allocated to these companies after 2005. The Supreme Court in January had asked for a status report of development of these blocks. The Inter-Ministerial Group reviewed these blocks in early February and recommended to de-allocate these blocks immediately.
The blocks cancelled include two coal-to-liquid blocks—Ramchandi Promotional block with estimated reserves of 1,500 million tpa allocated to Jindal Steel & Power Ltd in 2009 and North of Arkhapal-Srirampur to Strategic Energy Technology Systems Ltd, a Tata-Sasol JV.
Ramchandi Promotional block was meant to feed the company’s Rs.77,450 crore CTL project in Odisha for which JSPL had requested the petroleum ministry to forward the project proposal to the Cabinet Committee on Investment while, SETSPL had also sought centre’s intervention for taking up its Rs.66,000 crore CTL venture with the CCI.
Some of the blocks include Lohara West and Lohara Ext (E) mine allotted to Adani Power, Madhujore mine jointly allocated to Ramswarup Lohh Udyog, Adhunik Corporation, Uttam Galva Steels Ltd, Howrah Gases, Vikas Metals and Power Ltd, ACC Cement Ltd, Radhikapur (West).
