KOLKATA (miningweekly.com) - India’s Coal Ministry has included the Bhaskarpara coal reserves, in the central province of Chhattisgarh, to the list of coal blocks up for auction next month, and taking the number of blocks up for bidding to nine.

The Ministry started work on the fourth round of coal block auction in November, identifying eight coal blocks. The new reserve in Chhattisgarh was included in the list last week, as geological data compilation had been completed and both the provincial and federal government was keen to maximize the number of blocks up for sale, a ministry official said.

The fourth round of auction was scheduled for completion between January 18 and 22, while the blocks would be handed over  to successful bidders by March 2016

Apart from Bhaskarapara, the other blocks to be put up for competitive bidding were Brahmapuri and Suliyari, in Madhya Pradesh, Bundu and Gondulpura, in Jharkhand, Gondkhari and Khappa, in Maharashtra and Jaganathpur A and Jaganathpur B, in West Bengal.

The nine blocks have an aggregate estimated reserve of around 1.2-billion tonnes.

The blocks had been reserved for bidding by companies commonly known as ‘unregulated sectors’ like steel, cement, and captive power plants wherein end product of these sectors are not governed or administered by the government or independent regulators unlike sectors like power utilities and fertilizers.

According to information provided by the Ministry, of the total 34 coal blocks auctioned over previous three rounds this year, seven were either in production or close to it, recording an output of five-million tonnes.

The Ministry claimed that the remaining mines were expected to start production over the next three months as all pending issues like mandatory clearances at the provincial and federal levels, stamp duty and in case of operational mines handing over assets from erstwhile owners to new owners would be completed. Only in the case of one block, uncertainty continued as it was locked in litigation.