Bhubaneswar, Oct. 19: Two ministers of the Naveen Patnaik government today strongly defended the chief minister’s decision to write to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recommending allocation of coal block to Hindalco, a subsidiary of the Aditya Birla Group.
The BJD functionaries, including urban development minister Debi Mishra and Puri MP Pinaki Mishra, demanded that the Congress and the BJP withdrew their allegations against Naveen.
“Since the Prime Minister himself had clarified that there was nothing in allocating coal block to Hindalco, the Congress must withdraw its allegations and apologise,” said Mishra.
While the Opposition continued to fire salvos at the chief minister, health minister Damodar Rout and panchayati raj minister Kalpataru Das maintained that there was nothing wrong in recommending the Talabira-II coal block to the group, which has set up an alumina smelter plant and a captive power plant.
Referring to the allegation that the BJD had received Rs 5 crore from the industrial group in 2009-2010, Rout said: “The donation was not a bribe. It was a political donation and the group had made contributions to the coffers of other political parties, including the Congress. The amount was received in two instalments and through cheques. There was nothing wrong in accepting donations.”
He said: “The allegations are being made with vested interests in mind. The BJP, too, must have received money from the group.”
“If there was a motive, the Prime Minister’s office could have rejected it. They could have raised questions and sought clarifications while allotting the block,” said Rout.
Naveen had written to the Prime Minister on August 17, 2005, and the Centre allocated the coal block to Hindalco and two others in November, the same year.
The CBI, which is probing into the allotment, is believed to have raised questions as the Centre had rejected an official committee’s recommendation not to allot the block to Hindalco. The company is setting up an aluminium smelter with a capacity of 2,60,000 tonnes per annum in Sambalpur district, near Jharsuguda, for which they needed a 900MW captive power plant.
Das said: “The government gives importance to mineral development in the state through value addition. The chief minister had urged the Prime Minister to examine the case and the Centre had the authority to turn down the request.”
Targeting the chief minister on the issue, Pradesh Congress Committee president Jaydev Jena said: “Under the guise of value addition for the state’s development, Naveen Patnaik has unduly favoured several companies. In the case of Hindalco, he wrote a letter to the Prime Minister in 2005 requesting personally to favour the group. It is obvious that there was an under-hand deal with the group.”
Odisha Jan Morcha leader Pyari Mohan Mohapatra said: “It was inappropriate for Naveen Patnaik to write to the Prime Minister after screening committee rejected the block for Hindalco.” BJP state unit president K.V. Singh Deo, too, sought explanation from Naveen for not following the policy of a level playing field.
In a related development, the CBI today raided the house of former Hindalco chairman S.K. Tamotia and was said to have seized some documents.
