Chhattisgarh health minister T.S. Singh Deo has alleged a scam by the BJP government at the Centre in the auction of two coal blocks in the state in November 2020, saying it would incur an overall loss of more than Rs 24,000 crore to the state. He has asked the BJP government at Centre to come clean on the issue.
Singh Deo, one of the senior-most Congress leaders in the state, tweeted on the issue of auctioning of the two coal blocks in Gare Palma mines in Raigarh district of the state and cited a detailed article by media outlet Newslaundry to make his allegations.
"The BJP government didn't blink an eye while auctioning two mines of Chhattisgarh at a recurring loss of Rs 900 crore per year and overall loss of more than Rs 24,000 crore," the minister said. He further said that the BJP must clarify whose benefit was considered for this (auctioning) because it was neither for the state government nor the people of Chhattisgarh.
Singh Deo further said, "The hasty deals, meagre prices, ignoring the welfare of the state, and taking a U-turn for its own reasons to cancel previous deals from five years back - every action of the BJP government at the Centre in the coal auction points towards a scam."
He also used a flowchart with his tweet to back up his allegations. The chart claims that the auction of the two coal blocks – Gare Palma IV/1 and Gare Palma IV/7 in the Raigarh mines – in November 2020, fetched bids 25 per cent and 60 per cent lesser respectively, compared to the bids in 2015 cancelled bids. In 2015, the blocks had fetched bids of Rs 1,585 per tonne and Rs 2,619 per tonne, but were later cancelled for different reasons.
However, earlier, the Central government had told the Rajya Sabha it was not ideal to make income comparisons.
The matter of the Gare Palma coal block auctioning was taken up by Madhya Pradesh Congress MP Vivek Tankha in the Rajya Sabha in February this year. On February 8, Tankha had asked in the Upper House "whether the premium income from the current auction rate (November 2020) was lower than that of 2015 rates; and if so, the amount of loss Chhattisgarh is expected to suffer per year."
In his reply, the minister for coal and mines, Pralhad Joshi had replied “During the recently concluded first tranche of Commercial Coal Block auction in the year 2020, bid parameter is on 'revenue-share' mode. The participants bid for a percentage share of revenue payable to the state government from the production and sale of mined coal.”
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He went on to detail that the Jindal Power Ltd had won the Gare Palma IV/1 block bid at 25 per cent revenue offer, while Sarda Energy and Minerals Ltd had won the bid on Gare Palma IV/7 at 66.75 per cent revenue offer.
As for the 2015 auction, the minister mentioned that the Gare Palma IV/1 was not declared successful while the other had fetched a bid of Rs 2,619/tonne from Monnet Ispat & Energy Limited.
“Comparison cannot be made in the premium income as there are different bidding parameters in both the auctions. In the auction in 2015, bidding methodology was on the basis of Rs/tonne auction for captive consumption, while for the auction in 2020, it was % (per cent) revenue for sale of coal and there was no restriction on utilisation of coal,” the Union minister had said in his reply.
