In July 2021, India’s coal ministry put 67 new mines up for auction; only 19 of these received interest and only eight got more than one bid. In 2015, when coal mines were first being auctioned to private companies, the future revenue streams from these auctions were being touted as historic sources of income for both the Union and state governments. Today, India is struggling to give them away to the private sector at rock-bottom prices with minimal conditions. What went so wrong? Why is the government struggling to sell a commodity it considers so precious? You don’t have to …
Rohit Chandra is an assistant professor at IIT Delhi’s School of Public Policy and also a visiting fellow at the Centre for Policy Research. Primarily a political scientist and economic historian, his academic work spans the areas of energy policy, state capitalism and infrastructure finance; he has spent the last decade studying the coal and power sectors.
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