Bhubaneswar, Oct. 22: The Congress today trained its guns on chief minister Naveen Patnaik for recommending coal blocks in the state to private companies. Some of them got the coal blocks even without signing MoUs with the State government, the party alleged.

Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president Jaydev Jena said: “The BJD government has not only recommended coal block Talabira-II to the Hindalco Industries Limited, a subsidiary of Aditya Birla Group, but also recommended a coal block to the Jindal Steel and Power Limited (JSPL).”

In his letter to the then Union coal minister Ravi Shankar Prasad in June 2002, the chief minister had said: “Since allotment of Utkal-B-1 coal block is very vital for setting up the sponge, iron/steel plant in the state, I would request your personal intervention in the matter and consider the allotment of Utkal-1 block in favour of Jindal Steel and Power Limited on cancelling the prior allotment to Talcher Mining Private Limited.”

Later, it was allotted to the Jindal in 2003.

Defending the government’s decision, panchayati raj minister Kaplataru Das said the recommendations were made as the Jindals had set up its industries in the state. The company has already invested huge money in the state.

“On our assurance, the Jindals has invested nearly Rs 20,000 crore. Similarly, Hindalco has so far invested Rs 10,000 crore in our state. What is wrong in recommending names of these two companies who sincerely want to go for value addition?” he said.

Das said: “Even though the state is the licensing authority, the Centre is not bound by the recommendation of the state. We have recommended names of 47 companies. But they have accepted 15 names and rejected 32.”

As many as 33 coal blocks have been allocated to 54 companies in the state, of these 34 are private companies, three are state PSUs, 13 are PSUs run by other state governments and four central PSUs.

Sources said the coal block to Bhushan Steel, which was later cancelled by the inter-ministerial group and coal allotment to the Navabharat Power Limited, are under CBI scanner. The CBI has already filed a case against Navabharat Power Limited for selling its coal blocks to another company.

Sources said the CBI is inquiring how the state gave all the clearances to Navabharat Power Limited and allowed it to sell the coal block to Essar Power Limited. Though the process of selling started one year before its acquisition by another company, the state government remained mute spectator to all these developments.