KOLKATA (miningweekly.com) – The government of the eastern Indian province of Odisha on Wednesday officially announced the auction of four mineral blocks, including three limestone ones in the Malkangiri and Garamara districts and one manganese block at Keonjhar.
The e-auction will be overseen by government-owned trading house MSTC, with merchant bankers SBI Capital Markets acting as adviser to the provincial government. Officials said that the auction will be completed by January.
The deadline for the submission of bids is December 12.
This will be the second round of auction in the current financial year, with Essar Steel bagging the Ghoraburhani-Sagasahi iron-ore block earlier.
According to a government official, Odisha is targeting the auction of at least two more mineral blocks within the current financial year, which ends March 31, and another seven blocks in the following financial year.
He said that government was moving fast to complete preliminary exploration (G3 level) for all the blocks that will go under the hammer, as the federal government will not allow any block to be auctioned off without such a level of exploration.
From the federal government’s Mines Ministry’s perspective, the goal would be to complete auction of 37 mineral blocks, barring coal, by all mineral-bearing provinces within the current financial year, the official added.