For nearly seven months, Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal sat on a file that sought his direction on keeping captive coal block allocations on hold until the new competitive bidding system was launched. The then Coal Secretary, C Balakrishnan, sent the file on July 20, 2009 seeking the minister’s decision on “whether allocation of coal blocks should continue as per the extant policy in practice or this should await enactment of MMDR Amendment Bill 2008 which seeks to introduce competitive bidding system”.