Shree Cement bags first non-coal mining lease in Chhattisgarh

The IBM price of Limestone in Chhattisgarh was Rs 483.17 per tonne while SCL offered to pay Rs 284 per tonne

Shree Cement Limited (SCL) bagged the Karhi Chandi limestone block in Balodabazar district of Chhattisgarh in the first-ever non-coal mining lease auctioned by the state government.

The IBM price of Limestone in Chhattisgarh was Rs 483.17 per tonne. SCL offered to pay Rs 284 per tonne — the highest bid that was 58.95 per cent of IBM price. The auction process continued for over five hours on Thursday. In all, 192 bids were submitted.  

“The auction of Karhi Chandi block itself would yield Rs 4,386 crore to the state exchequer at the said IBM price by way of bid-revenue, in addition to royalty of Rs 1,232 crore,” Chhattisgarh’s Mining Secretary Subodh Kumar Singh said. The state government had notified auction of four limestone blocks and one gold block on December 8, 2015, under the MMDR (Amendment) Act, 2015 that stipulated ‘auction’ as the mode for allocation of mineral resources and empowered the states to conduct the auction.

According to SCL officials, the block has an estimated reserve of 166 million tonnes with 80 million tonnes cement grade limestone. The block would feed the company’s cement plant located in the same district.

The company had a major expansion plan to augment the capacity in Balodabazar plant to 5.2 million tonnes. A memorandum of understanding had been signed earlier between the Chhattisgarh government and the SCL, which has a cement production capacity of 23.6 million tonnes per annum from multiple locations.