Important meeting of CEC which will discuss on E-auction, Pricing and Royalty

Bhubaneswar: A crucial meeting of the Central Empowered Committee (CEC) on mineral development and regulation is scheduled to be held on Thursday in New Delhi. The importance of the meeting has increased since this is the first meeting after the Shah Commission report made public. The committee is expected to have a discussion on several issues raised by the private miners related to the up-coming e-auction of minerals in Odisha.

The mines secretaries and senior officials of several mineral bearing states will attend the meeting to be chaired by Mr.RH.Khwaja, Secretary, Union Ministry of Mines.

In late 2012, the Odisha Government had planned to start e-auction to sell key bulk minerals like Iron ore, Manganese and Chrome from April 2013. However, this has been delayed amid pending written consent from CEC that is needed to enforce the process on the private miners. The CEC directive is necessary to make e-auction for all the miners including the private ones mandatory.

In the first half of 2013 In H1 FY13, the CEC had sought information from the state Steel & Mines Department regarding price differential between normal sale price of mine lessees and e-auction prices. The committee also pointed out the possibility of disputes between buyers and sellers that may arise due to auction sale.

IBM Pricing – A major issue

Apart from the discussion on the e-auction the CEC will have a discussion on the complain by the Odisha Government against the private miners that they have deliberately been reporting lower price of Iron ore to the Government due to which the state is losing huge amount of royalty revenue. On the other hand, the states may raise their demand before the CEC to direct the Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM) not to fix mineral prices below 20% of the market price.