Bhubaneswar: In a significant development, the Odisha government on Friday issued a fresh notification for auction of 20 working mines whose lease period is going to expire on March 31, 2020
The government had earlier cancelled the auction process for these blocks recently on administrative ground.
Now, it has issued a fresh notification by incorporating new conditions in the tender document.
The Steel and Mines department had received bids from 177 companies for the auction of 20 mining blocks.
The decision to cancel the notification has been taken after meetings of the technical evaluation committee and the high-level committee held on November 30.
The government detected that apart from subsidiary companies, the holding companies had also applied for the bidding in gross violation of the Mining Tender Act.