Companies including Essar, Hindalco and Adani make 130 initial bids for 21 mines, Reliance Cement and GMR have bagged one mine each.
The government on Sunday received about 130 initial bids from Essar, Hindalco and Adani Power and others for 21 ready-to-mine coal blocks on the Schedule 3 of blocks on offer.
For Hindalco, Sunday was memorable one with the Kumar Mangalam Birla-owned company bagging the Kathautia mine in Jharkhand at a price of Rs 228 crore per annum or Rs 2,860 a tonne thereby out-bidding companies like Monnet Ispat, Ultratech Cement and Rungta Mines, which were also in the race.
Other mines on the block are Belagaon in Maharashtra and Sarisatolli in West Bengal. Kathautia, reserved for the non-power sector, belongs to the Schedule 2 or producing mines' list, bidding for which began on Saturday when GMR and Reliance Cement bagged one mine each. These two would be getting one mine each for estimated Rs 1,375 crore and Rs 798 crore respectively for the mines they won.
On Sunday, blocks like Utkal C in Odisha and Gare Palma IV/8 in Chhattisgarh received large number of bids. Altogether 16 bids from players like Essar Power, Sesa Sterlite and Adani Power came for Utkal C while 13 bids were made for Gare Palma IV 8 from companies like Hindalco, Sesa Sterlite and Balco.
While 19 mines were put on bid Saturday for Schedule 2 mines after withdrawal of a few following court orders, there were 21 mines in Schedule 3 for which technical bids were opened on Sunday. There would now be shortlisting of the 130 bids for these mines.
These 21 mines include Brinda and Sisai mines in Jharkhand, Durgapur and Taraimar coal blocks Chhattisgarh, Jamkhani mine in Odisha, Lohari mine in Jharkhand, Marki Mangli-IV mine in Maharashtra, Nerad Malegaon mine in Maharashtra, Dongrital II (Phase I) mine in MP and Ganeshpur Block in Jharkhand.
Other mines in the category are Jitpur mine in Jharkhand, Mandakini-A mine in Odisha, Meral coal mine in Jharkhand, Rohne Coal Block in Jharkhand, Utkal C in Odisha, Dumri Block in Jharkhand, Gare Palma IV/8 in Chhattisgarh, Kosara Dongargaon in Maharashtra, Mandla South in Madhya Pradesh, Moitra mine in Jharkhand and Tara Mine in Chhattisgarh.
For Schedule 2 miners mines, 42 bids were rejected, biggest loser being Anil Agarwal group-owned Sesa Sterlite.
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