The final report of the Comptroller and Auditor General on the allotment of Coal Blocks has pegged the loss to the public exchequer at `1.86 lakh crore. Meanwhile, UPA’s crisis managers have already put in place a foolproof strategy to defend the government. Sources said the government will stress on the point that considering the high demand of coal, particularly between 2004 and 2009, for important infrastructure projects by private players, it was not possible to auction the coal blocks. This would have resulted in huge cost escalations in key infrastructure projects as well. In any case the government would further argue that unlike the spectrum allocation in telecom, coal blocks allotment were never meant to be a revenue generation exercise but to provide support to the infrastructure sector. The government, sources said, will also question CAG’s calculation of reaching the figure of `1.86 lakh.
“CAG’s assessment is faulty since two mines in the same coal block don’t generate same quality and quantity of coal. So the cost needs to be calculated for an individual mine and not the entire coalfield or coal block as the CAG has done,’’a senior government official said.
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Accused IAS officer rejoins duty
Age correspondent
Lucknow, Aug. 16
Senior IAS officer Pradeep Shukla, who was released from Dasna jail in Ghaziabad last week, is back on duty and has joined as member Board of Revenue.
Mr Shukla, an accused in the NRHM scam, was arrested form Lucknow on may 10 and has spent almost three months in jail but the Samajwadi government, for unexplained reasons, did not suspend the officer who is known to enjoy a good rapport with SP president Mulayam Singh Yadav.
As per service rules , any government officer who spends more than 24 hours in jail, is placed under suspension but the state government, in Pradeep Shukla’s case, chose to ignore this clause and did not place him under suspension.
The state government, according to the CBI, has not even given permission for his prosecution.