SC accepts auctioning of iron ore in K'taka

The Supreme Court today accepted the Central Empowered Committee's (CEC) recommendation that out of 25 million metric tonne of iron ore stock from Bellary, Chitradurga and Tumkur in Karnataka, a quantity of 1.5 million metric tonne per month be sold through e-auctions which will not be used for export.

The CEC report, accepted by the court, said lease-wise and grade-wise reserve price for iron ore for bidding will be fixed after considering the sale price obtained by National Mineral Development Corporation (NDMC).

The bench headed by Chief Justice SH Kapadia, however, clarified that the part of report stating that modalities recommended for iron ore sale will also apply to manganese ore will not apply to leases which are exclusively for manganese ore.

"The (CEC) report submitted on September 1, recommending (modalities for sale of iron ore)... Is accepted subject to following clarification that para five (dealing with sale of manganese ore) will not apply to leases exclusively to manganese ore," the special forest bench also comprising justices Aftab Alam and Swatanter Kumar said.

The CEC, in its report, had said, "The quantity of 1.5 million metric tonne of iron ore per month will be sold and this quantity will be sold through e-auction(s). For this purpose, the mining lease-wise and/or grade-wise reserve price will be fixed after taking into consideration the sale price obtained or fixed by NDMC."

It said that only "steel and associated industries who have been wholly or partly dependent on iron ore from Karnataka for their own use, will be eligible to participate in the auctioning and no export will be permissible."