States gear up to auction 70 mineral blocks in FY'18

Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Odisha are among the states that are preparing for auction of around 70 mineral blocks like iron ore, limestone and bauxite in the next financial year.

"Auction preparedness of blocks for 2017-18 (is) already under preparation by the states," according to the agenda for the Coordination-cum-Empowered Committee meeting on Mineral Development and Regulation to be held tomorrow.

Besides, timelines associated with the pipeline of blocks available for auction are likely to be confirmed at the meeting.

"It is required to expedite action to put the mineral blocks, of all the lapsed applications...On auction expeditiously... There are about 231 of these blocks available (with advance stage preparation for mining) which could not be executed for putting up on auction by the dtates," it said.
 

"These blocks would be immediately available for putting up on auction by the States. The State Government may also take immediate steps to file caveat in the respective courts for preventing stay, if any, in going for auction," the agenda said.

Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu are some of the other states where mineral blocks to be auctioned are located.

The Mines Ministry has already facilitated the auction process extending support from its offices - IBM & GSI and various PSU's such as MSTC, MECON, MECL and SBICAP.

"The State Governments may give any further handholding requirements for auction of these mineral blocks of lapsed leases," it said.

The blocks to be available for auction in future which are being explored under National Mineral Exploration Trust (NMET) or being explored by GSI, MECL on their own or are being explored by entities under the new exploration policy.

The status of collection of the money accrued in the DMF funds by the state government and its utilisation would be discussed during the meeting.

Till now around 21 mineral blocks have gone under the hammer.