New Delhi : The government will put on the block eight more mines after 10 mines are auctioned in the third phase, for which the process has already begun. “After these 10 mines (to be auctioned in third round in August), eight more mines are in the queue,” Coal Secretary Anil Swarup said.
He added that it is likely that within a month they “have more and more mines coming in so that they would suffice for other sectors also.” Swarup said keeping in mind plans to ramp up coal production to 1.5 billion tonnes by 2020, there is a plan for hiring manpower to mine the blocks. The government has so far auctioned 29 coal blocks in two tranches to private companies and garnered over Rs 2 lakh crore. -PTI
