TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: The government intends to start e-auctioning of the ore lying at jetties, leases and elsewhere by January end or February first week.
Even though Dr U V Singh would be arriving on Saturday, monitoring committee members Sheikh Naimuddin and Parimal Rai on Friday met officials of various departments including mines, port and commercial taxes at which MPT Chairman P Mara Pandiyan was present. The committee is in Goa till January 15.
“Our mandate is to ensure that State government revenue starts coming in and there is transparency in mining activities,” a monitoring committee member said refusing to disclose details. “Economy has suffered (due to mining ban)…the main thrust is to generate revenue,” the member added.
The mines department submitted the report on re-verification of iron ore lying at the 22 jetties. The department had re-verified ore lying at seven jetties last month, while it had verified ore at other jetties earlier. According to the report furnished by teams headed by assistant directors 4.88 million tones of extracted ore is lying at the jetties. While there is no ore lying at the Panjim port, nearly 1.8 lakh ore is stacked at MPT. Nearly 15 million tones of ore is ready for e-auction and after e-auction the entire ore would be exported.
“The local mine owners, who are registered exporters, would be allowed to participate in the e-auction process,” officials said, hinting that only local players could be involved despite earlier talks of global tenders. The MPT and Captain of Ports have also petitioned the monitoring panel to begin the e-auction process at the earliest.
