Kolkata: Trials for Coal India's in-house e-auction platform will begin in May, a senior official said on Thursday. At present, the e-auctions are conducted through external agencies such as MSTC Ltd and mjunction Ltd.
Within the next three-four months, all e-auctions of the state-owned Coal India will move to the in-house platform, which has been developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) with the assistance of Central Mine Planning and Design Institute, the official said.
"We expect to begin trials of the in-house platform in the first or second week of May with the e-auction of coal from Central Coalfields Ltd. The next one will be Bharat Coking Coal Ltd (BCCL) in the second phase of the trials," a senior Coal India official said.
The total coal sold via e-auction per year is around 100 million tonne or about 15 percent of the production, while the rest is sold through linkages. Coal India fetches a significantly higher price on the coal sold through e-auction, he said. In 2023-24, Coal India's production was 703 million tonne.
Around 1,500 bidders have already registered on the in-house platform, the official said, adding that the figure is expected to rise to 5,000 in the future. At present, mjunction is a JV between Tata Steel and SAIL, and public sector undertaking (PSU) MSTC Ltd execute Coal India's e-auction at a ratio of 60:40.
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