The government of Indian state Goa’s e-auction of idle iron ore stockpiles held on Tuesday, November 10, attracted a poor response from buyers with only 1.1 million mt or about 37 percent of total idle stocks lying at ports finding buyers, a government official said on Wednesday, November 11.
The official said that 13 buyers participated in the e-auction and the poor response would mean low-than-expected revenue generation by the state government.
India’s Supreme Court in an order of 2012 ruled that all iron ore mined after 2007 was illegal. In a subsequent order in 2018, the court banned all iron ore mining operations in Goa maintaining that lease renewal without adopting the mandatory auction route was illegal, and all iron ore stocks lying at ports, jetties and inland stockyards were declared ‘state property.”