Coal news and updates

The UPA government, which is under fire from the Supreme Court for the irregularities in coal block allocations, has been further embarrassed by the Congress-ruled Maharashtra government which accused it of not following a fair and transparent policy. The state government said the decision to do away with the competitive bidding resulted in profits only to private companies and caused immense loss to the exchequer, the very allegation levelled by petitioners in the PIL in Supreme Court which demands de-allocation of all coal blocks allotted since 1993. 

 

In a strongly-worded letter to the coal ministry, the Maharashtra government made it clear it did not plan to execute mining lease in pending cases where applicants were holding letter of allotment since more than five years, and said it favoured the auction route. This decision has also been conveyed to the Supreme Court and the letter has been filed in the form of an affidavit by Vivek Tankha, the senior lawyer who appeared for Maharashtra. 

 

The stand of the Maharashtra government is a major snub for the Centre as a meeting of inter-ministerial group on October 24 had directed all the coal-rich states to hasten the process of executing the leases. This was in the backdrop Supreme Court asking Centre to cancel allotments to those applicants who were merely holding letters of intent and no substantial progress have been made in their cases due to lack of forest or environmental clearance.

 

 

Source: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/