Paradip, April 17: Paradip Port Trust authorities have ended a seven-month log stalemate and initiated the process to allot cargo plots in the port’s prohibited area through bidding process.

Earlier, Orissa High Court had censured the port officials for acts of impropriety in allotment of the plots without adhering to the mandatory tender-bidding process.

In August last year, permits of 59 such plots were cancelled as the high court had reprimanded the port trust higher-ups for granting the facilities to exporters without adhering to the auction and tender-bidding process.

“The bidding has begun. Twenty-seven iron ore plots are being subjected to auction. The applications have reached. The legal technicalities of bidding are being worked out,” port trust chairman Sudhansu Sekhara Mishra said.

With a slump in iron ore export, the bidders have shied away from auction of rest of the vacant plots. There is no bidding of 32 plots that have been caught in legal tangle, said port trust sources.

The plots within the prohibited area are much sought after by exporters for cargo-handling. With about 1,000sqft plot fetching Rs 2 crore to Rs 3 crore by way of auction, the plot allotment was one of the major revenue generation sources for the port.

However, specific allotments made by the port trust higher-ups without the tender-bidding and auction process had kicked up a controversy. The port had lost in terms of revenue because of such allotments. Later, a writ petition had been filed seeking the high court’s intervention on the alleged acts of omission and commission.

As the port plot is a public premise according to Section 2 of the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupant) Act, 1972, any allotment without auction is an act of impropriety, the court stated.

The court, citing provisions of Section 111 of the Major Ports Act, 1963, the land policy of major ports, 2010, framed by the Centre, had ordered for cancellation of plot allotments done without tender and auction process.

“Paying regard to the high court order, we had withdrawn permit licences for 49 cargo plots within the port’s restricted areas,” said port trust’s deputy chairman S. Ananth Kumar Bose.