Of the 38 mines offered for auction, the Ministry of Coal received a total of 76 eligible bids for 23. The technical bids comprising online and offline bid documents as part of the auction were opened at 10.00 am on Wednesday. This was done in the presence of bidders who were given the option of joining the meeting in either in-person or virtually. The Ministry of Coal had launched the auction process for the sale of coal on June 18. The bids had to be submitted by September 29. Adani Enterprises Ltd submitted the largest number of bids (7), followed by Hindalco Industries Ltd and JMS Mining Pvt. Ltd (5 each), Andhra Pradesh Mineral Development Corp. Ltd, Aurobindo Realty & Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd and EMIL Mines & Mineral Resources Ltd (4 each), and Sarda Energy & Mineral Ltd, Stratatech Mineral Resources Pvt. Ltd and Vedanta Ltd (3 each).