As many as 30 public and private sector companies that have failed to develop the captive coal mines allotted to them will soon receive show-cause notices from the government.
Companies that could get notices include NTPC, Jindal Steel, Tata Steel and SAIL for procrastinating the development of the coal blocks that were allotted to them earlier.
The IMG arrived at this decision at its meeting held earlier this month, sources said.
According to the decision, the developers would be given a month’s time to respond as to why their blocks should not get cancelled owing to delays in the development of their respective blocks. The crackdown is part of government’s exercise to ensure that allotted blocks do not remain unproductive for long.
The proposed move is significant as last year country’s top auditor Comptroller and Auditor General in a report had estimated undue benefits to the tune of Rs 1.86 lakh crore to private players on account of coal blocks allocation to them without resorting to auction.
In a similar exercise earlier, the government had issued show cause notices to 58 coal block allottees and de-allocated blocks of some developers.