Coal India Limited on Wednesday 19 June announced that they have awarded 23 discontinued underground mines to successful private sector bidders in an effort to tap into the dormant coal reserves of some of its closed and discontinued coal mines and increase revenue. 

According to the company’s regulatory filing, the mines have been awarded to private companies on a revenue-sharing model. The mines have a maximum tenure of 25 years and a minimum revenue sharing of 4%. 

The filing added, “The cumulative peak rated capacity of is 34.14 million tonnes/year (MT/Y) while the total extractable reserves are estimated at 635 MT.”

The company had identified 34 mines that were not operational but had significant amounts of coal reserves. However,it was not financially viable for the company to operate that, thus they decided to offer them to private companies. 

Among the 34 identified mines, Eastern Coalfields Limited, based in West Bengal, and Bharat Coking Coal Limited, based in Jharkhand, account for 10 each. Western Coalfields Limited has 5, South Eastern Coalfields Limited has 4, Mahanadi Coalfields Limited has 3, and Central Coalfields Limited contributes the remaining 2.

The successful bidder, to whom the mine will be handed over on an “as is where is” basis, can also utilise the existing infrastructure and project facilities without any additional payment to the authority.