The Centre, state governments and coal block allocatees need to come together in a ”coordinated and harmonious way” to operationalise the blocks at a faster pace as of the total 98 mines auctioned so far, only 33 are operational, Coal Additional Secretary M Nagaraju said on Thursday. He said that fast operationalisation of coal blocks will not only reduce the import of fossil fuel but would also prevent the foreign exchange expenditure.

”We have auctioned till now 98 (coal) blocks out of that 33 are operational… So, the task before us specially before mine allocatees, the state government and government of India is very clear. All of us have to come together in a very coordinated and harmonious way to operationalise the coal mines as fast as possible,” he said. He was speaking during the 14th Indian Coal Markets Conference hosted by mjunction services Ltd.

Stating the need for fast operationalisation of coal blocks that have been allocated or auctioned, he said some of the allocatees were found to be not taking interest and laxed on obtaining clearances. ”We are actually taking serious action on those who have been found laxed on obtaining the approvals/permissions,” he said adding that recently some coal blocks have also been cancelled.

He said there was a need to auction more coal mines and those blocks which are feasible and can be operationalised at the earliest should be put to sale. The Centre, he said, plans to come up with the second round of auction of blocks for commercial mining in January.

On the future of coal, he said that the dry fuel continues to be a very important energy mix in the country and in another 30 to 40 years it ”will be the king of energy mix.” He also said that there was a need to take a relook at the taxation policy of coal so that it may have an impact on reducing the imports of thermal coal.

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