Talcher coal fields

Bhubaneswar, Aug. 29: The Odisha government today defended its decision of recommending coal block allotments in favour of private companies, citing the imperatives of industrialisation in the state.

The BJD also marshalled its MLAs to counter the Opposition bid to outmanoeuvre it on the issue.

“The state government has signed 29 MoUs in the power sector and 50, in the steel sector. We have to meet their requirements which was not being done. In all, 32 coal blocks were distributed to 55 companies, including 13 public sector ones based out the state,” said minister of state for steel and mines Rajanikant Singh. Even in these cases, there is no question of any loss as no excavation has taken place in any of these blocks so far, he said.

Singh said the Centre had allotted the coal blocks. “In some cases, the Centre has accepted the recommendation of the state government to allot coal blocks to the private parties. In others, the Centre did it on his own,” he said.

He said that though the government had earlier opposed competitive bidding to allot coal blocks, later it changed its stand and supported it. Singh cited some letters written by the state government to the Centre after 2010 supporting competitive bidding.

However, not satisfied with his reply, the Opposition Congress and BJP members walked out of the Assembly, demanding transparency in the recommendation of coal blocks. The Congress also demanded CBI probe into all the recommendation made by the BJD government during the last decade. “The chief minister should take moral responsibility for all the irregularities and set an example by resigning,” said Opposition chief whip Prasad Harichandan.

The issue was raised through an adjournment motion brought by the Congress, which accused the chief minister of adopting a “dual policy” in case of coal block allotment. The party alleged that while the chief minister maintained that the government had been favouring an auction-based system of coal allotment, it simultaneously recommended allotment of coal blocks in favour of 42 companies.

The issue of coal block allotment gathered momentum last week when the state government found itself in a tight spot with Union minister of state for chemicals and fertilisers Srikant Jena producing documents to show that the chief minister in 2002 had written to the Centre to allot a coal block in the Talcher coal fields in favour of Jindal Steel and Power Ltd.

K.V. Singhdeo, BJP state legislature leader, said: “As all correspondence with the Government of India for allocation of minerals were made by the chief minister, he should have replied to the adjournment motion.”

Expressing concern over the issue, Singhdeo criticised the state government for recommending the names of private companies for coal block allotment violating the Industrial Policy Resolution (IPR). “The IPR says that the state government will recommend names of the private companies only if they have invested around 75 per cent of their total financial commitment for their projects. However, in a number of cases projects have not even gone to the stage of completing the process of land acquisition,” he said.

Harichandan and leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh said the government must provide authentic information about the excavation of coal from the blocks and the procedure of making recommendations.

Sanjay Dasburma, BJD MLA, said the state government had not committed any mistake by recommending names of private companies for coal block allocation.