The government is going to allow commercial mining of coal and the state owned entities will be the first to be allotted mines for the purpose.

“We will be alloting mines to the state entities for commercial mining of coal”, Coal Secretary Anil Swarup said.

In the next phase the private entities will be assigned mines, the centre is in the process of allocating 204 coal blocks of which 67 have been allotted. The allocation is done by either auction or on a nomination basis to state entities.

For the coal quality Anil Swarup said: ” Coal India  was committed toward supply of quality coal. Joint sampling is the way and we have prepared a schedule for coal washeries at each mine also”.