Coal India on Friday said it has tweaked its e-auction norms to encourage the offtake of coal through the auction route. A concept note has been circulated among its consumers on July 11.

The public sector miner has asked all its subsidiary companies, except Northern Coalfields, to reserve 40 per cent of their total production in the second and third quarters of 2025-25 for e-auction.

The earnest money deposit has been lowered more than a third from ₹500 per tonne to ₹150 per tonne.

“With more cash availability at their disposal, consumers could switch over to more auction with the same capital,” Coal India (CIL) said.

The subsidiaries have been given the flexibility to fix their reserve prices taking into account different factors such as local demand-supply scenario, methods of loading, coal stock at mines and level of booking in earlier e-auctions.

Reserve prices in e-auctions are arrived at after adding a certain percentage to the notified price of coal.

At present, CIL operates a single window mode-agnostic e-auction, where consumers can opt for their preferred mode of transport.

E-auction is a critical contributor to the topline of CIL as the realisation per tonne through this route is higher compared with the supply agreement route.

CIL has seen an improvement in e-auction volumes during the fourth quarter of 2023-24 to 23mt compared with 16mt a year ago. However, there has been a decline in realisation through e-auction because of a declining trend in international coal prices, according to market analysts.

The PSU miner said coal stock at thermal power plants stood at 45mt as of July 10, up 33 per cent compared with the year-ago period. “CIL’s intention is to supply coal to meet the full domestic demand and cater to any latent demand,” the statement said.