The Comptroller and Auditor General, CAG has appreciated the efforts made by Ministry of Coal in planning and implementing a new paradigm of allocation of natural resources. It its report tabled in the Parliament today, CAG acknowledged the Ministry for conducting auction within a short span of five months after the Supreme Court judgment canceling the allocation of 204 coal blocks in September 2014. However, the audit body noticed that there are some systemic and procedural issues, which needed to be addressed. <br/>CAG also raised questions about the first two rounds of e-auction of coal blocks saying that the level of competition was disappointing. It said competition may have been restricted in auction of 11 coal blocks on account of multiple bids by corporate groups made through Joint Ventures or subsidiaries. <br/><br/>It said, in 11 out of 29 coal mines successfully e-auctioned in first and second tranche, a number of qualified bidders in the e-auction stage were from the same company or parent subsidiary company coalition or joint venture. CAG said, in a scenario where the standard tender document allowed the participation of Joint Venture and simultaneously limited the number of qualified bidders, the audit could not draw an assurance that the potential level of competition was achieved during the stage II bidding. It added that in the third tranche, the Coal Ministry amended the clause of Joint Venture participation with the objective of increasing participation. <br/><br/>The CAG said, inconsistencies and inaccuracies in following some of the assumptions and various errors in computing of intrinsic values resulted in under-determination of upfront amounts in 15 blocks, under-determination of floor prices in 6 non- regulated sector coal mine and revised fixed rates in all nine power sector coal mines. <br/><br/>It also observed that even after a lapse of more than 12 months from issue of vesting orders, operationalisation in 15 out of 26 vested coal mines were pending which had the potential to adversely affect objective of early auctioning of these coal mines.