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MAJOR SETBACK
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New Delhi, Sept. 17: The government today deallocated the Gourangdih ABC mine, which was jointly given to JSW Steel and Himachal EMTA, besides approving the deduction of bank guarantees of the two allottees for failing to develop the mines within time.
The Gourangdih ABC mine is located at Raniganj in Bengal and has 61.54 million tonnes of extractable reserves. The coal was meant for a power project.
The move follows the recommendations of the inter-ministerial group (IMG), which is scrutinising 29 blocks awarded to private parties of the total 58 that were given show-cause notices for delays in development. With this, the government has approved the cancellation of licences of five coal blocks of the seven recommended by the IMG.
“I have approved the IMG’s recommendations on Friday and will take a call on others,” coal minister Sriprakash Jaiswal told reporters today.
In a meeting held today, the IMG recommended the encashing of bank guarantees of the Tubed coal block belonging to Tata Power and Hindalco Industries, said sources.
Tubed, a block in Jharkhand, was allocated to the two companies jointly in August 2007. The IMG did not recommend any licence cancellation of blocks. It will again meet tomorrow to review a new set of companies.
On Saturday, the IMG had recommended the deallocation of Gourangdih, given to JSW Steel and Himachal EMTA in 2009. The block is mentioned in the CAG report, which said the allottees of the block might have accrued undue benefit worth Rs 1,818 crore.
On Saturday, the IMG had also recommended the deallocation of the Rawanwara North block in Madhya Pradesh allotted to SKS Ispat and Power Ltd and the New Patrapara block (Odisha) allotted to Bhushan Steel Ltd and others.
Earlier, on September 13, the government had deallocated four blocks — Bramhadiha block in Jharkhand allocated to Castron Mining Ltd in 1996; Chinora and Warora (southern part) blocks in Maharashtra given to Fieldmining and Ispat Ltd in 2003; and Lalgarh (North) block in Jharkhand allotted to Domco Smokeless Fuels Pvt Ltd in 2005.
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