MoC published a discussion paper on auction of mines for sale of coal in Jan 2020 and invited comments on it. PEG's comments on the discussion paper touched upon issues such as competition, pricing, utilization of coal, and coal sale contracts under the proposed scheme, and provided some suggestions for improving the same.

In Feb 2020, MoC published a draft report on development of the National Coal Index, to be used for revenue sharing, upfront payment etc. in auction of mines for sale of coal, and for other purposes. PEG provided its comments on the draft report regarding issues such as treatment of power and non-power sectors, index computation frequency, treatment of imports and exports and the need for consistency between the NCI computation and revenue sharing mechanism envisaged in the auction of mines for sale of coal.