By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, June 7, 2019: Odisha will soon auction 40 mines, according to the state steel and mines minister Prafulla Mallick.

Announcing this soon after presiding after a review meeting with senior officials of the Steel & Mines department, Mallik on Friday said, “Licenses of 24 working mines will lapse in 2020 and we have begun the process of auctioning those mines. We have almost completed the auctioning formalities for 20 of the working mines and 16 other mines will also get auctioned.”

Formalities have been completed for 36 mines while 4 are in process, the review revealed.

Odisha government’s revenue from mines in 2018-19 increased by 70.92% to Rs 10, 479 crore, according to the review. Meanwhile, the annual production of OMC is currently at 16 million tonnes and plans are afoot to scale up production to 20 million tonnes, informed Mallick.