Oct-03 -2014 Time-3.00 P.M AAP News & Update— The Coalgate escape: How CAG’s manpower shortage, SC verdict saved BJP, state govts. firstbiz.firstpost/economy/the-coalgate-escape-how-cags-manpower-shortage-sc-verdict-saved-bjp-state-govts-102601.html The former CAG, Vinod Rai, whose audit reports on the spectrum and coal scams had singed the UPA, has made a stunning revelation in the context of the recent Supreme Court order cancelling 214 coal blocks which were illegally allocated. Vinod Rai has publicly conceded, following the SC judgement, that the CAGs office did not have the time or resources to assess the massive losses caused by illegal coal mine allocations by the state government companies to private parties through joint ventures. These did not figure at all in the CAG audit of coal mines allotted by the Coal Ministry under the Central government. The CAG merely quantified the loss to the exchequer caused by the Coal Ministrys allocation process. Rai now admits he did not have time or resources to look at the State government PSUs at all. He has said this in a letter to Ashish Khetan, a member of the Aam Aadmi Party. The loss to the exchequer on the coal blocks allocated by State PSUs to private parties would have worked out to Rs 43,000 crore in Chattisgarh. This is as per the criteria laid down by the Supreme Court itself. The Supreme Court has accepted the CAG method of calculating the loss to the exchequer at the rate of Rs 29.50 crore per million tonne of coal block allotted to private parties. Going by this calculation, the Madhya Pradesh Mining Corporations loss would have been Rs 21,000 crore. Both Chattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh were ruled by the BJP. The loss to the exchequer in the Left Front-ruled West Bengal would have been around Rs 50,000 crore if all the coal had been extracted by the private parties to whom coal blocks were given away virtually free. In Jharkhand, ruled by the BJP and JMM at different junctures, the size of the scam would be Rs 41,000 crore if the Supreme Court hadnt cancelled the allocations. Consequently, the State PSU scam is bigger than the Central scam which the CAG probed. In a sense, the Supreme Court has actually saved these state governments by cancelling the illegally allotted coal blocks. About 70 coal blocks were given away by the State PSUs. The CAG had only looked at central allocations of 55 coal blocks which were meant for captive use by private parties for producing power, steel, cement etc. The State PSUs were independently allotting blocks to private companies who mined the coal and sold it back to the state government at a much higher market price. This aspect of the coal scam was not discussed at all when the UPA government was hauled over the coals by the CAG. The former CAG Vinod Rai says,If you recall the audit of the Coal Ministry was done only in 2012...It was only then that we learnt that coal mines allotted to State PSUs were taken over by private parties in JVs and exploited for commercial purpose. By the time I left the CAG office in May 2013, we were barely grappling with the fallout of the Central allocation process. Vinod Rai now says a follow-on audit of State PSUs should have been done but for that the CAG would have had to recall all its manpower from other ongoing work in 2012. The fact, however, is the State PSUs have not yet been audited for the way they were doling out sweetheart deals to private parties. The political focus of the opposition parties, including AAP, had remained on the Central government. Of course, now the Supreme Court had cancelled all the 214 allocations and imposed a penalty of Rs 29.50 crore per million tonne of coal already exploited by the private parties. The fact that about 175 coal blocks, out of the 214 cancelled by the SC, remain unexploited over the past decade and more tells us that private parties were merely holding it for speculative purposes. The international price of thermal coal went up nearly three times between the year 2000 and 2009. This was also the period when crony capitalism was at its peak and private companies were accumulating natural resources for speculative purposes. The Modi government was shrewd in asking the Supreme Court for cancellation of the 214 blocks simply because it very well knew that the BJP governments in MP and Chattisgarh were part of this large scam. The BJP was lucky that Vinod Rai did not have time or manpower resources to formally calculate the loss to the exchequer caused by the State PSUs in Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh. If the CAG had done that, the politics around corruption might have taken a different turn. Note-All AAP Volunteers , AAP supporters , Indian Citizens , NRI’s , who are ready to accept AAP’s Ideology of “Self Governance “are welcome & hence are requested to kindly join the Political revolution of AAP to make India “A Corruption free Country”. So kindly join the group---AAM AADMI Party, Chandigarh & Northern Region , by clicking the following Link & then joining this group, also Convince your friends , Colleagues , Near & Dear Ones to join & share the same , for AAP News , Articles & Updates. https://facebook/groups/aapchandigarhandnorthernregiongroup Tirath Singh Saini , Chandigarh. India. Jai Hind /Inquilab Zindabad. AAP Membership No.—9000306205.
Posted on: Fri, 03 Oct 2014 10:05:24 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015