Gujarat and Rajasthan will auction a total of eight limestone mines through the e-auction route, according to notifications for the sale of tender documents put out by the state governments. The sale of tender documents is the first step in the auction process, which is followed by the bidding process.
Gujarat will auction five limestone blocks—Mudhvay Sub blocks 1 to 4 and its Goyla block—in the first round of auctions, according to data available on MSTC Ltd’s e-commerce website. MSTC is the nodal agency that monitors the auctions.
Rajasthan will auction three limestone blocks, Sindwari-Rama Khera-Satkhanda block A and block B and Harima-Pithasar-3D block, according to the MSTC e-commerce website. These blocks have been reserved for specified end-use of production of cement.
The last date to submit the initial bids for the Gujarat blocks is 11 January 2016 and those for the Rajasthan blocks is 4 January 2016. This would be followed by an online price bidding process.
Limestone will be the first non-coal mineral to be auctioned through the online process. Earlier, state governments allotted limestone mining leases through an allotment process and not through auctions.
Three rounds of coal auctions through the online route have already been completed in 2015.
Bids for limestone mines are likely largely from cement companies, as limestone is a key input in cement production.
According to the Indian Bureau of Mines, India has total cement grade limestone reserves of just under 9 billion tonnes. Based on this, a Planning Commission working group on mine exploration and development for the twelfth five year Plan between the years 2012 and 2017 had said that no cement capacity addition would be possible beyond 2023-24 if the cement sector grew at a projected rate of 12%.
Source: http://www.livemint.com/