The Indian government has terminated the proposed auction of coal blocks that would have enabled the winners to sell 25% of their production in the open market. Successful bidders would have been required to pay an additional premium of 15% of their final bid price for coal sold in the open market. Originally scheduled for November 2018, it was postponed five times and some discrepancies between the different tender documents led to its cancellation.
India is currently revamping its coal market policies and is looking forward to ending state control over the domestic coal mining sector. Last year, it ended Coal India's monopoly and approved a new commercial coal mining policy. Coal mines are now auctioned on an online transparent platform and both Indian and foreign private coal companies are able to bid for mines from which they can sell all the output in the open market without any end-use price restrictions.
India is the world’s second largest coal and lignite producer after China. Coal India represented almost 85% of the country's coal output in fiscal year 2018 (April 2017-March 2018), while coal accounts for 3/4 of the domestic power generation.
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