Now, bid for minerals on the Internet

Move stems from growing demand of e-auction

Public sector mineral trading company MSTC Ltd is planning to launch 'web based reverse auction' facility within 2005-06 to match the growing demand of 'e-auction'.

"MSTC has experienced robust growth in its e-auction segment and to match the growing demand of the market, MSTC will be launching web based 'reverse auction' facility within the current financial year using IBM server," said Malay Sengupta, chairman-cum-managing director, MSTC.

MSTC has disposed coal and scrap worth Rs 476 crore in 2004-05 through e-auction platform, registering a robust growth of nearly 500 per cent against the previous year's figure of Rs 80 crore, he added.

"During the first quarter of current financial year, MSTC has disposed coal, pig iron and scrap worth Rs 600 and is expected to be around Rs 1,600 crore by the year end," Sengupta said.

This segment is currently contributing to around 25 per cent of MSTC's revenue and is emerging as a major key business area for the company, he noted.

"The auction business is expected to contribute around 35-40 per cent of the company revenue during 2005-06," he added.

The overall turnover of the company, excluding the e-auction segment, stood at Rs 5,000 crore in 2004-05, with profit after tax recording a figure of Rs 38.30 crore, said Sengupta.

He further informed than 100 per cent of coal auction is done on 'e-auction' platform, whereas the corresponding figure for scrap stood at 36 per cent.

The share of scrap traded on e-auction platform is though expected to grow to 50 per cent in 2005-06, he hinted.

Sengupta also noted that MSTC might also add a few more item to be auctioned using this platform soon.

Sengupta explained this platform has significantly increased the transparency in the system. He further pointed that Coal India Ltd (CIL), that has been selling some coal through MSTC's auction platform has been able to fetch 50 per cent higher price than before.

MSTC has recently signed up with IBM, India to install their power5 processor based servers to increase the efficiency and handling capacity of its e-auction site, he added.

This might enable MSTC to handled around 5000 hits simultaneously, he noted.