The Ministry of Coal has recently amended the guidelines for coal PSUs to allow them to lease parcels of land and grant mining rights to commercial coal miners in case the area of the coal block secured by the latter under the commercial coal mining regime overlaps with land whose ownership rests with these Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs).
An official statement from the Coal Ministry read, “Ministry of Coal has found that several coal mines/blocks which have been allocated by Ministry of Coal are under allocation overlaps with lands acquired and vested in government companies… Since the ownership over such overlapping lands acquired under the CBA/CMN Act cannot be transferred or vested to private allocatees of coal mines/blocks, it creates an impediment for the private allocatees to undertake mining operations.“
The change in policy guidelines is expected to lead the way for faster operationalisation of coal blocks auctioned for commercial coal mining. The new amendment ensures that the ownership of such parcels of land rests with coal PSUs while they also get revenue.
According to the new guidelines, a commercial coal miner who acquires surface rights and mining leases from a coal PSU for such land will pay rent for the surface lease to the PSU at the rate of Rs 1,000 per hectare of land per annum. They will also pay the cost of land acquisition, cost of rehabilitation and resettlement, cost of employment against land, other incidental or ancillary costs/expenses etc borne by the coal PSU at the present market rate.
Speaking on the matter, the incumbent Additional Coal Secretary, Mr. M Nagaraju (1993-batch IAS officer) said, “The amendment in the policy guidelines will help operationalise commercial coal mines quickly. It will remove difficulties faced by successful bidders. And coal PSUs will also get revenue.“
