Bhubaneswar: Revoking
in its stay order on the chrome ore sale, the honourable Odisha High Court in
its interim verdict on Wednesday has directed the Odisha Mining Corporation Ltd. (OMC) to
supply chrome ore at maximum price to the user industries.
Challenging
OMC’s dual price policy Mr.Balgopal Mishra, Ex-MLA had filed a writ petition in
the Odisha High court. In his petition Mr Mishra had said that “in the matter of auction sale of chrome ore/chrome
concentrate by fixing two different rates for the same material for
Odisha-based and outside Odisha-based bidders, (OMC) not only committed
irregularities in the matter of sale of the precious chrome ore but also caused
huge loss to the government.â€Â
Prior to adopting the e-auction
route OMC used to fix price of chrome ore through price setting tender (PST)
and all chrome-based industries in the country were allowed to participate
irrespective of the date of commissioning of their plants.
“The price fixed by OMC for
each grade of chrome ore was uniformly applicable to all buyers, whether
Odisha-based or outside. While 70% of the total chrome ore was being sold to
state-based buyers, 30% was being sold to outside state buyers. The price was
the same for all,” a mining source said.
“Thereafter, OMC had
introduced two separate e-auctions for sale to state-based and outside state
buyers. A limited number of buyers of the state bid for 70% of the chrome ore,
while outside buyers bid for 30% of the raw material. For the same grade
material, another state can afford more than Rs 1,000 per metric tonne than
state-based buyers,” the source added.
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