81 coal blocks, including 33 non-CIL coal blocks dereserved

New Delhi, Aug 10 (UNI) The Government today said 48 coal blocks reserved exclusively for Coal India Ltd (CIL) and 33 coal blocks from the non-CIL area have been identified for allocation to government companies or permissible end-users.

Informing this, Minister of State for Coal Dasari Narayana Rao told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply that the Energy Coordination Committee set up under the Chairmanship of the Prime Minister had decided to de-reserve coal blocks reserved for CIL which the latter did not plan to work on in the XIth Plan period.

Dr Rao said it has been decided to give priority to the power sector in allocation of captive coal blocks, particularly power project of more than 500 MW and steel making capacity of one million tonnes.

He further informed that major state governments were in favour of royalty on coal and lignite on ad-valorem basis whereas the coal consuming states were in favour of continuation of tonnage based royalty figures.

UNI SD CS DS1407