Auctioning of 17 lakh MT of coal to complete within 4 months

Dkhar on Thursday convened a meeting with the deputy commissioner of East Jaintia Hills FM Doph and coal miners from the district to discuss on the coal e-auction process, which was as per direction of the recent judgment passed by the Supreme Court.

The Apex court while lifting the ban on coal mining imposed by the National Green Tribunal for the past five years had directed the handing over of all extracted coal as assessed by the state to Coal India Ltd for proper disposal.

“The DC has been asked to conduct an awareness programme about the e-auction process,” he told reporters while informing that the identification of the coal stock which is lying in different places will be done by a team from the mining and geology department.

“Once this is done, unique number to each stock will be issued and this will be followed by testing of the quality of coal as there will be different prices based on the quality of the coal. The Coal India Ltd will then issue notice for auctioning of the same,” Dkhar said.

Stating that as per the list submitted by the district administration, there are over 400 coal stock owners, he informed the quantity of coal assessed was around 17 lakh metric tons in East Jaintia Hills. This was of the 32 lakh metric tons of coal in the entire state.

The Commissioner & Secretary said of the bidding price, royalty due to the state government will be accordingly deducted besides the Meghalaya Environment Protection and Restoration Fund (MEPRF) and 10 per cent for Coal India Ltd. “The balance amount will go to the coal miners,” he added.

When asked, Dkhar said the process of auctioning the extracted coal assessed by the government will take around three-four months to complete.

By Our Reporter