Four iron ore, manganese blocks to be auctioned

30th April 2018

The State Government has identified four iron ore and manganese blocks for the next round of auction. This would be the fifth round of mineral block auction in the State.

The Department of Steel & Mines has initiated the process for notification in this regard, said official sources.

The listed areas are Netrabandha Pahar West Iron Ore block in Sundargarh district and Rengalbeda North West Iron Ore block, Unchabali Iron and Manganese block and Kalimati Manganese block in Keonjhar district.

The Netranbandha Pahar East block was set for auction in the first phase and the Bhusan Power & Steel Limited had bagged it. Now, Netrabandha Pahar West Iron Ore block would be put into auction.

While this iron ore block is rich in resources, the Unchabali and Kalimati Iron Ore and Manganese blocks have limited amounts of deposits, sources said.

The High Level Committee (HLC) headed by the Development Commissioner has already given green signal for putting into auction of the four blocks. Auction is likely to be taken up in June, said sources in Directorate of Mines.

The Government had for the fourth round placed three blocks of limestone — Behera-Banjipalli, Garramura and Uskalvagu — for auction.

While Behera Banjipali block has a 4.36-million tonne reserve in Bargarh district, Garramura has 3.88 MT in Keonjhar and Uskalvagu block has 189.52 MT in Malkangiri district.

It came to notice that there was hardly any major interest shown by mine owners for these blocks. Only one bid for each block was received. Looking at the situation, the authorities have decided to set these three limestone blocks for auction once again in next round, officials said.

The e-auction process is handled by the SBI Cap, which is the Transaction Advisor of the State Government. The SBI Cap is handling the mineral auction process across the country.

With the auction process is on, chances of reserving iron ore, manganese and limestone blocks for the end users do not exist, which has come as a big deterrent for major investors in the steel sector, officials admitted.

Source: THE PIONEER