Coal Minister to issue show cause notices to 58 block allocatees

NEW DELHI: The government today said it has decided to issue show-cause notices for deallocation to allocatees of 58 coal blocks for sitting idle on captive mines.

The decision was taken by a review panel headed by Coal Additional Secretary Zohra Chatterji.

"The committee has given its recommendations and it has been decided to issue show cause notices for deallocation to allocatees of 58 coal blocks," Minister of State for Coal Pratik Prakashbapu Patil said in a written reply to Lok Sabha.

The coal ministry had held a two-day meeting in January to review the progress of the captive coal blocks and its associated end-use projects.

Earlier, the show-cause notices were issued by government on recommendations of the panel to the allocatees of 84 coal blocks. The notices were issued after the review meeting which was held in July, 2010, the minister said.

"Based on the clarifications submitted by the allocatees of these 84 coal blocks, 14 coal blocks...were deallocated," he said.

As on December 2011, 218 coal blocks have been allocated, out of which 25 coal blocks have been taken back by the Coal Ministry.