E-auction of minerals in Odisha from April 2013

Electronic sale of key bulk minerals in Odisha like iron ore, manganese and chrome ore is expected to start from April 2013. E-auction services will be offered by Kolkata-based MSTC Ltd.

“We are making efforts to launch e-auction of iron ore, manganese and chrome ore from April 1, 2013. In December, we will convene a meeting of all stakeholders to decide the modalities of e-auction. Once a consensus is reached, we will take government order for beginning of electronic sale of minerals,” said director (mines) Deepak Mohanty.

A five-member panel on e-auction headed by steel & mines secretary Rajesh Verma had its maiden meeting on Thursday in the presence of representatives of MSTC.

“E-auction will ensure transparency and fairness in mineral trading. The electronic sale system will enable us to track the transaction between lessees and buyers. The rates of e-auction will reflect actual market prices,” added Mohanty. B B Singh, director (commercial), MSTC Ltd, said, “We have discussed all issues related to e-auction of minerals threadbare. Our e-auction services will be customised to suit the requirement of mining lessees and buyers. Bidders for e-auction can participate from anywhere in the country.” Domestic sale of iron ore produced in Odisha stood at around 60 million tonne in 2011-12 while that of chrome ore and manganese ore was one million tonne and 0.05 million tonne respectively.

The MoU would outline the roles, responsibilities, scope of work and remuneration for MSTC. A suitable government order will be issued, making e-auction compulsory from a certain date for sale of iron ore, manganese ore and chrome ore.

MSTC would set up its office in Bhubaneswar for coordination and execution of e-auction related work. All users of e-auction will have to register with the MSTC website either as buyer or seller. Registration of buyers and sellers will be a continuous process. Users from the Odisha government will be provided with a master password by MSTC for monitoring purpose.

The sellers would forward the list of material with all details to MSTC in soft copy for creating online auction catalogue. The details would include the reserve price to be fixed by the seller. The reserve price would be the start price for the e-auction.