TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: As of Thursday, 20 barges have been registered with the Directorate of Mines and Geology by their owners who expressed interest to ferry the iron ore which was recently sold during the e-auction process.
A total of 1.60 million metric tons of ore has been auctioned thus far
The mines directorate had on March 14 issued an order appealing to barge owners to register themselves for the purpose of transportation of the auctioned ore. Only those barges having global positioning system (GPS) installed on the vessel were allowed to register for the work.
Of the total 20 barges registered, eight barges are owned by leading mine owners including Dattaraj Salgaocar Shivanand Salgaocar and by V M Salgaocar & Sales International
Other barge owners include Vaibhavi Shipping Pvt Ltd, MSPL Limited, M/s Carsons, Casa Pracaxa Materials Movement Pvt. Ltd, D P Pai & Sons, Shradha Shipping Co. Pvt. Ltd, GR Shipping Pvt Ltd, NK Shipping, Atreya Shipping Pvt Ltd, Rahi Shipping Pvt Ltd and Samudrika Shipping.
Official said that government is likely to undertake third lot of e-auction by mid-May.
Goa Metal Scrap Trading Corporation (MSTC) had auctioned 5.35 lakh metric tonne of low-grade ore on February 17, while the second lot of 12 lakh metric tonne ore was auctioned on March 5. The State would be auctioning 15 million metric tonne of iron ore lying at jetties, leases, plots, beneficiation plants and ports.
