Odisha govt issues fresh notification for auction of 20 mines

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government on Friday issued a fresh notification for auction of 20 working mines, lease period of which would end on March 31, 2020.

The government had annulled the auction process for these blocks recently due to procedural goof-up.

Now, it issued a fresh notification by incorporating new conditions in the tender document.

The state government had earlier issued notices for auctioning of 29 iron ore and manganese mines.

The Steel and Mines department had received bids from 177 companies for the auction of 20 mining blocks.

The decision to cancel the notification has been taken after meetings of the technical evaluation committee and the high-level committee held on November 30.

The government detected that apart from subsidiary companies, the holding companies had also applied for the bidding in gross violation of the Mining Tender Act.

This was the reason for the government deciding to cancel the auction notice.