Bhubaneswar: The Union Mines Ministry expects that 30 more mineral blocks would go under the hammer by August this year.
“NITs (Notice Inviting Tenders) have been issued in respect of 32 mineral blocks. We expect that 20-30 blocks would be auctioned in August”, said Union mines Secretary Mr. Balvinder Kumar. In Odisha, seven to eight mineral blocks are also ready for auctions and we expect the state government would hopefully issue NITs in a month, he stated.
However, the Odisha Steel & Mines secretary has said that it’ll start processing in a month but issue of NIT may take little more time.
On the issue of the National Mineral Exploration Policy which was approved by the Union Cabinet recently, he said that the policy will go a long way in shaping the Indian mineral exploration sector. The policy will facilitate participation of private players and international players in the Indian mineral exploration sector in a revenue sharing model. As per the policy the explorer would get a percent of revenue from the prospecting bidder of the mineral block for a period of 50 years. There are also provisions of compensation for the explorer in case no mineral found from the block under exploration.
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