SHILLONG, April 10: With state government failing to find bidders during the auction of extracted coal from East Jaintia Hills, it has now decided to re-auction it.
The e-auction of the extracted coal had taken place on Tuesday during which there were no bidders.
A government official informed that the notice for the re-auction will be announced soon. However, this time, the government has decided that along with the coal from East Jaintia Hills, coals from West Khasi Hills, South West Khasi Hills and South Garo Hills will also be auctioned during the next auctioning exercise.
In the initial phase, the state government wanted to e-auction 53,888 metric tonnes of extracted coal from East Jaintia Hills and the auction notice was published on the MSTC website.
The official said that that reason there were no bidders this time was likely because of higher reserve price. He, however, added that some people did register on the website.
The reserve price for the six G15 grade lots was fixed at Rs 5,558 per MT and for the two lots of G17 grade was fixed at Rs 4,850 per MT.
The department had notified 11 depots in four districts of East Jaintia, West Khasi Hills, South West Khasi Hills and South Garo Hills for conducting e-auction of extracted coal by Coal India Ltd and MSTC Ltd.
Depot managers have been appointed and necessary infrastructure at five depots has been completed while coal transportation has been going on. Of the total coal to be auctioned, 75,000 MT is in East Jaintia Hills, 50,000 MT in South Khasi Hills, 25,000 MT in South West Khasi Hills and 50,000 MT in South Garo Hills.
Based on the Supreme Court’s July 3 ruling, a committee of the National Green Tribunal had approved, on a pilot basis, the auctioning of 2 lakh MT out of the 32 lakh MT of coal in the state.
The government expects to generate a royalty cess and GST worth Rs 21 crore through the auction.