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Request review at WP:AFC COAL-GATE SCAM –AN INSIGHT INTO GOVERNMENT’S POLICY.
INTRODUCTION At midnight on 15 August,1947; independent India was born, it was a rare moment in history, when we passed from old to new, when an age ends and when the soul of the nation, long suppressed, find utterance. Our first Prime Minister Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru proclaimed ‘a tryst with destiny’. But looking at the present condition of our country,every Indian regrets and asks themselves as to ‘was this our destiny?’. The dream of India, which our freedom fighters strived for, is shattered. India is bestowed with lots of good things, including our glorious intellectual and spiritual tradition, but it is equally cursed with social problems, which she is relentlessly fighting. Corruption, nepotism has shaken the very foundation of our democracy and the governments inaction to curb this menace, is slowly making the country to jump to the realm of dictatorship. India is no longer considered a soft state as political scientists once used to call it. It has now become a kleptocracy, a consideration state, where everything to be had can be had for consideration. A clerk to an octroipost walks away every evening with Rs. 300-400 in his pocket. A railway ticket-examiner who allots vacant berths in a compartment earns Rs.100-200 everyday. A person in a government office asks for Rs.50-100 to locate a file. A minister manages to purchase government lands for personal use at one-fourth of it’s real worth. A very senior officer arranges to get free marble, wood and other things for constructing his house. A newly elected independent MLA is offered bounty to support the ruling party. People are frustrated and are making fun of our political phenomena. Corruption has progressively increased and is now rampant in our society, which is hard to believe. HOW IMPORTANT IS COAL TO INDIA? India’s booming economy lead to the consumption of high energy. Coal is the major source of energy. Seventy percent of our power generation comes from thermal power plants wherein it uses coal to generate steam. India has large coal reserves. Coal is the most valuable and reliable source of energy to the economy. More than half of the current commercial energy requirement is met by coal. The six most important coal reserve states are: SL NO	STATE	RULING PARTY 1.	RAJASTHAN	BJP ruled state(during coal allocation) Now,congress ruled state. 2.	CHATTISGARH	BJP ruled state. 3.	JHARKHAND	BJP ruled state. 4.	MAHARASHTRA	Congress-NCP coalition ruled state. 5.	ODHISHA	BJD ruled state. 6.	WEST BENGAL (POSCHIM BONGO)	Left ruled state(during coal allocation) Now,TMC ruled state.

The production of coal assumed greater significance after 2003 when the Government Of India (GOI) pronounced a mission “Power to all by 2012”. Accordingly, the GOI envisaged capacity addition of one lakh megawatts of power by 2012 and inorder to meet this increased capacity, corresponding increase in the coal production was required in X TO XII plan period (2002-2012). WHAT MADE CAG TO LOOK INTO THIS? The widening gap between the demand and the domestic supply of coal and consequently the progreesively increasing imports has assumed a critical situation warranting a study to examine the effectiveness of the process adopted in allocation of coal blocks to increase coal production and interms of transparency and objectivity. The performance by CIL in augmenting coal production to meet the demand of the core infrastructure sectors like power, steel and cement was also been analysed by CAG.The issue of competitive bidding for allocation of captive coal blocks in the light of Ministry of coal’s initiatives starting from 2004 and the likely benefits passed on to the private allotees by not resorting for competitive bidding has also been brought out by the CAG.

MEGA SCANDALS IN INDIA BETWEEN 1980-2009. SL NO.	NAME OF SCANDAL	NATURE OF SCANDAL	YEAR	AMOUNT INVOLVED	PERSON(S) INVOLVED 1	Bofors	Purchasing of guns from a swedish firm for the army. 1986	200 crores	PM and other high ranking politicians. 2	Cement allotment	Allocating scarce cement for donations	1982	5 crores	CM(Maharastra) 3	Offering plots	Offering plots to builders	1988-89	Hundreds of crores	CM(Maharastra) 4	Brown beveri locomotive deal	Getting commission from the purchase of locomotives. 1993	Hundreds of crores	Union railway minister 5	Contract in communication ministry	Giving contracts to relatives and friends	1993	500 crores	Union communication minister 6	Stock market securities	Fraudulent transactions in government securities and using money for personal gains. 1992	4183 crores	Share brokers(Harshad mehta and associates) and managers of bank. 7	Pay off	Receiving a bag of money from a share broker	1993	1 crore	P.M 8	Sugar deal	Deliberately blocking the import of sugar and beneffiting sugar industrialists. 1994	650 crores	Union minister of state for food. 9	Fodder scam	Inappropriate transactions of public funds of animal husbandry dept. 1996	950 crores	C.M, politicians and officials of animal husbandry department. 10	2G spectrum allocations	Crony allocations of spectrum at a lower price.Hence causing huge loss to govt.exchequer. 2009	1.75 lakh crores	Union Telecom minister,officials and several top politicians.

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF VARIOUS AGENCIES INVOLVED IN EXPLORATION,PRODUCTION AND ALLOCATION OF COAL ARE INDICATED BELOW: SL NO	NAME OF THE INSTITUTION	ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES 1.	Ministry of coal (MOC)	It has an overall responsibility of framong policies and strategies for exploration and development of coal reserves. It also lays down general guidelines for production, supply and distribution of coal. 2.	Coal controller’s organisation(CCO)	It is a subordiante office of MOC having it’s headquaters at Kolkatta. The CCO discharges various statutory functions such as inspection of collieries for ensuring class, grade and size of coal, collection and publication of statistical information on coal and to grant opening/reopening of coal mines. In 2005,MOC appointed CCO as the nodal agency for monitoring the production of coal blocks allocated for captive mining. 3.	Coal India Ltd. (CIL)	CIL, a maharatna company, under MOC, was incorporated in Nov.1975. CIL has seven wholly owned coal producing subsidiaries.

CAG ‘S FINDING’S The reports of CAG of India which contained the audit and accounts performance on “ Allocation of coal blocks and augmentation of coal production” was tabled in the parliament. CAG in it’s report revealed some inadequacies and shortcomings: 1.	The governments delay in the policy making ability led to the loss of Rs.1.86 lakh crore to the government exchequer wherein a total of 145 coal blocks were allocated. 2.	The precious natural resources of this country are mismanaged and undersold. 3.	57 coal blocks were alloted to private players. 4.	Govt.’s delay in building consensus among the state and itself, led to the delay in auction process. 5.	There was no comparitive evaluation of the appicants, which implies that there was no transparency in the allotment process. 6.	No transparency in functioning of the screening committee. 7.	Lack of co-ordinated and planned approach by various government agencies involved in statutory clearances and land acquisition. 8.	Complete breakdown of CIL, where it failed to reach the target envisaged in planning commission.CAG finds that there was no monitoring mechanism in place in CIL for verification of end use of coal. 9.	CAG made an important conclusion that “a part of this financial gain, could have been tapped by the governments timely decision”.

CRONY CAPITALISM The audit report of the coal allocation by the supreme audit institution of India (SAIT) attributes the loss to governments policy paralysis mainly due to coalition clinches. This report was the clear indications of the crony capitalism which had overtaken the national interest. Prime Minister, who was then the coal minister of India is accountable and responsible to the parliament and to the people. He is more responsible for taking this controversial decision which is denied by him saying that the federal structure is to be blamed for the delay in the process. The much reforms needed is outsourced to the menace of capitalism. Article 149 empowers CAG to make evaluation of centre and state, but it’s power is limited but it can question the policy decision of any government. It is sad that UPA government is denying one after the another scams. 2G spectrum scam is the biggest scam of the post-independent India. Coalition is proving more regressive. India is certainly standing at a critical juncture. Government is reluctant to admit it’s error and concedes that it’s figures are misleading. Except the state of Maharashtra, all the other coal producing states had made written objection to the Govt. of India, indicating that they are not in favour of competitive bidding process in 2005. But indeed, it becomes the legitimate right of the state government to ask for its share for its thermal and steel power projects as the natural resources are in their respective states. In 2004, the MOC had asked the legal department if the competitive bidding process could be the appropriate option. Governments policy decision delay and lack of political will, made the government to go for non-auction process. However, the NDA government had chance of amending the nationalisation of mining bill in 2000. The collective screening committee had the state representatives and on the basis of their evaluation, government took it’s stand on the mining allotment. Given the complexity of consensus building, if he were to be honest, our Prime Minister, in the interest of the nation, could have taken the suo-motto decision in the favour of competitive bidding process, as it was on a centre list and did not need any state government consensus. COAL-THE POLITICAL MINEFIELD Coal paralysed India’s parliament. Entire opposition is united on the issue of corruption and BJP is adamant on stalling the functioning of parliament. BJP made a serious allegation that the revenue had gone to congress coffers and said that the congress party was arrogant and despotic. The present coal minister Shri.Prakash Jaiswal, did try to come clean and said that there was not a single allocations of coal blocks were made in his tenure as a coal minister.BJP asks Prime Minister to take moral responsibility and step down. Prime Minister’s clarification on this issue: 1.	In order to maintain the robust economy and he country’s GDP growth, it was inevitable on his part from not allocating through bidding process, as it was a time consuming process. 2.	CAG calculations are misleading. 3.	There was no favour shown to any private party. 4.	CAG cannot question the policy decision of the government. 5.	All allocations were transparent. 6.	CAG is not following its mandate. 7.	CAG’s observations are disputable and will challenge in PAC. It is disheartening to see that the PM questioning the very authority of the ‘Supreme Audit Institution Of India’, he being an one of the important constitution upholder. However, the Prime Minister’s statement in parliament were not convincing and his defense were quite weak. But it looks like the BJP is determined to push the UPA into mid-term polls, given the extent of scams. CBI’S INVESTIGATION The irregularities in the captive coal block allocation is being investigated by CBI. It has found evidence of irregularities in contracts for 142 companies who were granted coal fields. The agency plans to file criminal charges against five of them. CBI also made an important observation that in order to qualify, some companies lied about their finances, while others did not reveal that they had already been assigned coal blocks. The CBI believes that these problematic allotments could not have been made without the collusion of government servants. Hence some beureaucrats could also be charged. CBI is also likely to raid some companies. CONCLUSION India is starving of energy and the cities are reeling under severe power cuts. Hence it is the responsibility of the government to frame suitable laws and stick to its policies. Let there be a regulatory system so that there is no scope for corruption and minimise irregularities. Government has to take a firm stand on bringing transparency and accountability in it’s governance. These scams have indeed hurt the brand image of India and in the due course country’s economy suffers. Also, it is important that our political leaders stop making sweeping allegations and rather focus on having concrete evidence and fix the ruling government in trans, if it is actually guilty of it’s coal policy.