Odisha Govt Issues Fresh Notice For Auctioning Of 20 Mineral Blocks

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Government issued a fresh notification on Friday for auctioning of 20 mining blocks.

The previous bidding process was annulled last month after it was found that some companies had adopted unfair means while applying for the bidding.  Apart from subsidiary companies, the holding companies had also applied for the bidding in gross violation of the Mining Tender Act, Director of Mines, Dipak Mohanty said.

According to some reports, bids from 177 companies were received for the 20 blocks. The lease period of these blocks is set to end on March 31, 2020.

The fresh notice says that the last date for the purchase of tender document after payment of tender fee is December 30, 2019 and the last date for submission of the bid is January 3, 2020.

The prospective bidder who had purchased tender documents for a particular mineral block in response to the earlier notice on October 4, can avail the fresh tender document of such a block without paying the tender fee of Rs five lakh, the notice underlined.

Out of the 20 mineral blocks, 12 are iron ore blocks, six are iron ore and manganese and two are manganese blocks.

The Director of Mines had told the media following the cancellation of the earlier tendering process that the fresh notification would incorporate new conditions in the tender document.

He had said that a bidder shall submit only one bid for a particular mineral block. In case a bidder submits more than one bid for a particular block, either directly or indirectly through its affiliates, all such bids submitted by the bidder and its affiliates will be summarily rejected.