)
The Odisha government which has decided to go for electronic sale of key minerals like iron ore, chrome ore and manganese is awaiting the directive of the Supreme Court-appointed Central Empowered Committee (CEC) to enforce e-auction on mine owners.
"Unless we get a directive from the CEC, we cannot make e-auction mandatory on all lessees. There is a possibility that a lessee may initially agree to participate in e-auction and back out later. We had discussions with the CEC and they have responded positively to our move for introducing e-auction," a top official source told Business Standard.
The state steel and mines department has missed its target to roll out e-auction from April 1 this year. The e-auction services were to be provided by Kolkata-based MSTC Ltd. Discussions with all stakeholders are through on introducing e-auction.
A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was to be signed between the state government and MSTC for rolling out e-auction services.
The MoU would outline the roles, responsibilities, scope of work and remuneration for MSTC. A suitable government order will be issued, making e-auction compulsory from a certain date for sale of iron ore, manganese ore and chrome ore. The state government, through, a recent notification, had stated that a decision has been taken for introduction of sale of iron ore, manganese ore and chrome ore by all lessees and licensees in order to bring transparency and improvement in the existing system as well as to generate more revenues.
MSTC would set up its office in Bhubaneswar for coordination and execution of e-auction-related work. All users of e-auction will have to register with the MSTC website either as buyer or seller. Registration of buyers and sellers will be a continuous process.
Users from the Odisha government will be provided with a master password by MSTC for monitoring purposes.
