The union cabinet Monday decided to bring an ordinance to resolve the issues of coal blocks arising out of the Supreme Court judgment quashing their allocations, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said here.
"The cabinet has recommended promulgation of ordinance to the president in order to resolve the pending issues particularly the situation arising out of a Supreme Court judgment quashing allocation of coal blocks," he said.
As per the ordinance, all the cancelled coal blocks will be put in a pool for auction to end-users in the 3 core sectors of power, steel and cement, the finance minister said.
The auction of these mines would be done in a transparent manner through e-auction to actual users of the captive coal mines. The government would not have any discretionary powers on the process.
"The entire mess the UPA government left behind would be cleaned up in next 4 months," Jaitley said.
Most of the mines in question are located in the Eastern region and the revenue from the auctions would go to the states concerned, the finance minister told reporters.
The revival of mining in this case would be a "financial empowerment and eastern states" and "lakhs of people would get employment," Jaitley added.