Govt. plans auctioning of 300 mine blocks

Fast tracking the process of auctioning mining blocks in the current fiscal, the government has decided to auction around 300 mineral blocks across different states, Mines Secretary, Balvinder Kumar said, adding that some of the states have very large number of mining leases as Karnataka alone has about 100 odd leases which would be put on auction. So far, around 21 mining leases have already been auctioned and these mineral blocks have a cumulative resource value of around Rs.94, 000 crore. The Mines Ministry has already facilitated the auction process extending support from IBM and GSI and various PSUs such as MSTC, MECON, MECL, and SBICAP. States including Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Odisha are among the others preparing for auction of mineral blocks like iron ore, limestone, and bauxite, in the next financial year, he claimed.