TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: The Directorate of Mines and Geology on Wednesday invited applications from persons willing to register as transport contractors from among truck and barge owners provided they have domicile in Goa of minimum 15 years and should be preferably from mining areas.
DMG has also asked the barge and tipper owners or firms to submit their applications for installing vehicle tracking system (VTS) on their vehicles, failing which the vehicles would not be allowed to ply. The last date for submitting all applications has been extended to April 4.
The State has so far e-auctioned about 1.62 million metric tons of ore, the total value of which is Rs 260.68 crores. DMG had conducted two e-auctions in February 17 and March 5. It had on March 14 issued instruction to barge owners for expressing interest in transporting the ore. The last date to intimate the department was March 21 and accordingly 87 barges had registered themselves with the department. The date has now been extended till April 4.
As per the fresh notification, only those trucks or tippers registered with the department through Goa Electronic Ltd and allotted a number by GEL shall be used by a transport contractor for plying ore.
It has also made it mandatory that a transport contractor shall be of a Goan origin having minimum 15 years of residence in Goa, preferably from the mining areas. In case a Partnership firm or companies a minimum of 51 percent of partners or director should be of Goan Origin and have 15 years residence in Goa.
Though, as per procedure the ore purchased during the e-auction had to be lifted within 30 days, the transportation of the ore for export has not yet begun because of the storage charges being demanded by the Mormugao Port Trust (MPT).
The Supreme Court appointed monitoring committee on e-auction headed by Dr U V Singh, in its report to the Apex Court has said that the process of e-auction is likely to slow down in the state.
