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E-auction could be best way to allot coal blocks: Parakh

March 10: Even as India's coal block allocation scam continued to hog the limelight, former coal secretary P C Parakh recently said e-auction could be the best way for allotment of coal blocks.

"There is no doubt that e-auction would have been the best way for allotment of coal blocks," Parakh told Coal Insights, a sister publication of ICMW.

The former secretary, who was named by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in an FIR in connection with the alleged scam, further said there were suggestions made in favour of open bidding, as it could be a transparent and fair method of selection among several equally eligible contenders for the blocks.

"As coal that is to be extracted from captive blocks would be far cheaper than that obtained from Coal India Ltd (CIL) or imports, allocation of captive blocks free of cost was discriminatory," he said.

Parakh, however, added that, "To my mind, there was no political will to adopt open bidding."