The entire quantity of 3.2 LTs offered by Northern Coalfields Limited, under the newly structured auction window, was fully booked
NEW DELHI : Coal India Ltd’s offer of nearly 5.2 lakh tonne of coal under the recently revamped single window e-auction witnessed strong response from coal consumers with 100% of the offered quantity getting booked.
After the merger of multiple auction windows into a solitary outlet, Coal India conducted e-auction in two of its subsidiaries on March 3, 2022.
The entire quantity of 3.2 LTs offered by Northern Coalfields Limited, under the newly structured auction window, was fully booked. Similarly, around 1.98 lakh tonne of coal placed by Eastern Coalfields Limited got booked, said a statement from Coal India.
The auction took place after the decision of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs in the last week of February to allow sale of non-linkage coal through a single e-auction window.
Post the decision, consumers from regulated, non-regulated sectors and traders have to vie for coal under one common window.
CIL had constituted a committee to smoothen any crimps arising out of the migration to the modified system and rollout its seamless functioning.
“The big upshot is discovery of true market price for coal with removal of the segmentation. Previously, same coal used to fetch different prices in different e-auction windows. Another point in favour of the new system is the increased transparency with all the offered coal placed in a single basket. Hitherto coal companies had the discretion of separate offers for different windows.” said a CIL official.
Further, there will be a level playing field for all consumers with same price structure. Other benefits include elimination of cartelisation due to wider base of participants, according to the company.
On Monday, the state-run company said that it has recorded a total supply of 608.15 million tonne of coal so far in FY22. The company achieved the feat on March 4.
Its previous annual record high was 608.14 million achieved in FY19.
According to the company, nearly all its subsidiaries are ahead in their respective coal off-take numbers over corresponding period last year.
CIL is concentrating its efforts to increase its supplies further in a bid to touch 670 million tonne off-take mark in FY22.
