Mumbai: Private companies were allocated 26 coal blocks in Maharashtra "free of cost" during 2004-10, BJP MP Hansraj Ahir said in Mumbai on Wednesday.
"Maharashtra has 3 per cent of coal deposits in the country. With Congress support, 26 coal blocks were allocated to private players without any bidding," Ahir said.
He said that the coal block allocation scam is bigger than the 2G scam. "Coal blocks allocated to private players should be cancelled and taken back," he said.
Reiterating his party's stand that the Prime Minister should accept the responsibility and quit his post, he alleged that Coal India was not allocated a single block in the last five years.
"When the government allocated coal blocks, Coal India had demanded 138 blocks. But in the last five years they were not allocated even a single block," he said.
He said that Mahagenco wasn't getting coal to produce electricity. Besides, SAIL, NTPC, NALCO and other government companies were not given coal blocks, he said. He also claimed that the amount of allocated coal blocks is a whopping Rs 50 lakh crore.
"When the Madhya Pradesh government auctioned coal blocks, the ground rate was kept at Rs 200 per tonne. The Maharashtra government got four blocks, which has coal deposits of 400 billion tonnes. The Maharashtra government kept a facilitation fee of Re 1," he said.
Private players who took these blocks were Adani, Sunil Hi-tech, India Bulls and another private player after auctioning in 2008-09.
"After 30 years the Maharashtra government will get only Rs 603 crore. Whereas, as per auctions conducted by the Madhya Pradesh government, it would get over Rs 800 crore annually for 300 million tonne deposit," he said.
He also alleged that the CAG was not given right information by the government on coal blocks allocation.
Comments
0 comment