Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government has decided to expedite the initial processes to start the e-auction of minerals in the state as soon as possible. However, miners have expressed their displeasure over the poor infrastructure at the mining circles for e-auction.
On 8th October'13, the state Steel and Mines department had convened a meeting with the officials of the Metal and Scrap Trading Corporation (MSTC) and miners to finalize various modalities of the upcoming e-auction. As per the decisions taken in the meeting, miners will have to inform MSTC about the grade of the mineral they wish to sale and the base price in every 15 days. After collecting the data from the miners, MSTC would show the data like Name of the miner/company, Amount and grade of the mineral, Base price etc in the website. Subsequently, auction would be held and the mineral would be sold to the highest bidder. Both Iron ore lumps and fines would be sold through this method. It has been decided that MSTC will charge 0.2% of the sale price of the mineral as commission.
The meeting was attended by Steel and Mines Secretary G.Srinivas, Director of Mines, Mr Deepak Mishra, MSTC Managing Director and several miners of the state. There will be another meeting on the issue later in the month.
By Tapan Moharana
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