{"id":949,"date":"2012-09-25T14:16:25","date_gmt":"2012-09-25T08:46:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/teekhapan.wordpress.com\/?p=949"},"modified":"2012-09-25T14:16:25","modified_gmt":"2012-09-25T08:46:25","slug":"coalgate-is-94-percent-congress-scam-6-percent-others","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vivekkaul.com\/2012\/09\/25\/coalgate-is-94-percent-congress-scam-6-percent-others\/","title":{"rendered":"Coalgate is 94 percent Congress scam, 6 percent others"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\nVivek Kaul
\n\u201cHum to doobe hain sanam, par tumko bhi le doobenge,\u201d <\/em>was a line often used in the Hindi movies of the sixties, seventies and eighties. This line now applies to the Congress party as it tries to divert the attention from its involvement in the coal-gate scam.
\nThe Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) will now widen the scope of its inquiry into the coal-gate scam. The inquiry will now cover allocation of all coal blocks given away for free to private companies including state government entities since the policy was first initiated in 1993.
\n\u201cThe ongoing CBI inquiry covers 67 blocks allotted to private parties since 2004 when the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) came to power<\/em>,\u201d reports the Business Standard<\/em>. \u00a0The CBI will now probe all the allocations made to private companies going back to 1993.
\nThis means that the inquiry will now also look at allocations made to private companies before the Congress led United Progressive Alliance(UPA) came to power. \u201cThe probe will now cover the blocks given during the six-year tenure of the BJP-led NDA government, from 1998 to 2004, besides those allotted by the Congress government led by P.V. Narasimha Rao after 1993 and the United Front government from 1996 to 1998. Till now, the CBI was investigating private companies that got blocks between 2004 and 2009<\/em>,\u201d reports The Hindu.
\n<\/em>This widening of the inquiry came on the basis of a reference made by the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC). The reference made by the CVC was in response to a letter written by Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal drawing the attention of the commission to the concerns of seven MPs of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA). These MPs included Sandip Dikshit, Harish Chaudhary, Ravneet Singh and Raghuveer Singh Meena. In a letter written to the Coal Minister on September 5, 2012, the MPs said: \u201cIt appears that there were many cases of malpractice while allocating blocks between 1993 and 2004. All blocks allotted since 1993 should be investigated by the CBI, specially looking at systems through which state governments selected private companies whose names they forwarded to the government<\/em>.\u201d
\nWhile any investigation has to expose those who are guilty, it still does not change the fact that coal-gate has largely been a Congress scam. This is clearly pointed out by the numbers in the Provisional Coal Statistics 2011-12, put out by theCoal Controller\u2019s Organisation, Ministry of Coal.
\nA total 195 coal blocks have been allocated between 1993 and 2011. Of these only 39 were allocated prior to 2004. Hence, only 80% of the coal blocks were allocated in the period prior to 2004. As we know the Congress led UPA has been in power since May 2004.
\nThings get even more interesting when we measure in terms of the geological reserves these coal blocks (i.e. the amount of coal) have. In fact, the total geological reserves of the coal blocks given away for free between 1993 and 2011 stands at 44802.9 million tonnes.
\nThe coal blocksallocated between 2004 and 2011, the period during which the Congress led UPA has been in power, have geological reserves amounting to a total of 41235.9 million tonnes. This means that 92% of the total geological reserves were given for free during the period of 2004 and 2011. As mentioned earlier the Congress led UPA has been in power since May 2004.
\nTo this we also need to add the coal blocks given away for free during the period 1993 and 1996 when the Congress government led by PV Narsimha Rao was in power. During this period nine blocks with geological reserves of 917.7million tonnes was given away for free. Hence, the Congress party was directly involved in giving away 42153.6 million tonnes or 94% of the total reserves for free.
\nThese numbers include both private and government owned companies. The scope of the investigation as we know is limited to coal blocks given away for free to private companies. I couldn\u2019t locate any data that gives the exact breakdown of the geological reserves of coal blocks allocated to private companies between 1993 and 2003, and then between 2004 and 2011. But the report put out by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India does give us some information on this front.
\nThe total geological reserves of coal blocks given away to private companies (excluding ultra mega power projects) for free between 1993 and 2009 amounted to 17397.22 million tonnes. \u00a0Of this, a total of 14060.34 million tonnes was allocated between 2006 and 2009, when the free giveaway of coal blocks was at its peak. Also, the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was also the Coal Minister for a large part of this period.
\nSo around 81% of the the total geological reserves given to private companies was given between 2006 and 2009. We don\u2019t have an exact breakdown for the earlier years. If we did the number would have been significantly higher.
\nWhat these numbers clearly tell us is that coal-gate is a Congress scam. There might have been corruption during periods of non-Congress rule and that cannot be denied. But as we saw chances are that as much as 94% of the total geological reserves were given away for free during periods of Congress rule.
\nBetween 2004-2005 and 2008-2009 there was a rally on in global commodity prices as China expanded at breakneck speed gobbling up commodities from all over the world. Hence, the price of coal shot through the roof.\u00a0\u00a0The international price of coal was a little over $20 per metric tonne in mid 2003. It shot up to around $40 per metric tonne in mid 2005 and kept rising after that.\u00a0Prices shot up to around $190 per tonne internationally in mid 2008. As the price of coal shot up, so did the number of coal blocks given away for free by the Congress led UPA government.
\nGiven this, asking the CBI to investigate everything from 1993 onwards is just a step towards diluting the scope of the investigation and hoping to gather some political ammunition against the opposition parties .As the Business Standard <\/em>reports \u201cIf the inquiry raises questions over allocations during the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regime, it will provide the government with political ammunition to counter criticism by the Opposition<\/em>.\u201d
\n(The article originally appeared at www.firstpost.com on September 25,2012.\u00a0http:\/\/www.firstpost.com\/business\/coalgate-is-94-percent-congress-scam-6-percent-others-467619.html<\/a>)
\n(Vivek Kaul is a writer. He can be reached at vivek.kaul@gmail.com<\/a>)
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\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vivek Kaul \u201cHum to doobe hain sanam, par tumko bhi le doobenge,\u201d was a line often used in the Hindi movies of the sixties, seventies and eighties. This line now applies to the Congress party as it tries to divert the attention from its involvement in the coal-gate scam. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) … <\/p>\n

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