Telangana to seek time for mines’ auction
HYDERABAD: The state government wants to seek more time from the Centre to auction limestone mines in Telangana. The Centre had earlier fixed a deadline of June 30 for the Telangana government to auction at least six out of 11 identified mines, including limestone, iron and manganese and warned that if the state government fails to comply, then it would initiate the auction on its own.
Official sources said that Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy will hold a review meeting with mines officials after his return from Delhi on Wednesday and will write a letter to the Centre requesting extension of the deadline. He also wants to request for allocating these mines to public sector units and not private entities. In a letter to the state government in May, the union mines ministry asked the state government to put at least six mines on sale by June 30. These blocks consist of five iron ore mines, five limestone blocks and one manganese block.
The state government could not focus on this issue because of the Lok Sabha elections. However, with the Centre launching the tenth round of auction of coal mines for commercial mining in Hyderabad on June 21, the auction triggered a political storm in the state with accusations and counter accusations between ruling Congress and main opposition BRS on the issue of privatisation of mine.
Sources said Revanth Reddy had obtained all the old files from the mines department to ascertain where and how the process to auction mines in Telangana had begun. He was shocked to find that it was actually the BRS government, which allowed privatisation of mines and had even sought Centre's permission to auction mines and it was now accusing the Congress government of privatising mines, which came to power only six months back. The Chief Minister’s review found that the BRS government had decided to hand over limestone and iron ore mines to private companies eight years ago and in 2018, the BRS government took a decision to auction three limestone mines. It identified limestone mines located in Pasupulabodu, Saidulunama and Sultanpur of Suryapet district.