Government will respect the Supreme Court's decision on coal blocks and will ensure quick action, including providing adequate coal to every power plant, Coal and Power Minister Piyush Goyal said today.
"What ever is the decision of Supreme Court we will respect...we will ensure quick action there after to get the process once again rolling, get coal production significantly enhanced to reach the target of one billion tonnes by 2019 and ensure that every power plant in this country gets adequate coal," Goyal said told reporters here.
Replying to a question, the minister said that "on the behalf of the government the coal ministry did not try to protect any mine (against likely deallocation) nor did it "suggest that the blocks should be stopped from deallocation."
The minister refused to give a timeline on when will the auction of coal blocks would begin. "No timeline till the decision of the Supreme Court," he said.
The Supreme Court had earlier said that all coal blocks during last 17 years since 1993 by various regimes at the Centre have been allocated illegally and arbitrarily, bringing uncertainty to the fate of 218 block allocations and consequential investments to the tune of around Rs 2 lakh crore. The next hearing of the matter is on September 8.
Government had on September 1 told the Supreme Court that it "wants re-auction of all 218 coal blocks" declared as illegal allocation but sought its indulgence to "exempt" 40 of them which are functional and ready for the end use power plants.
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