The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has strongly defended its decision to order a CBI investigation on all coal blocks allotted since 1993, when the government for the first time started allocating coal blocks to private companies.
Importantly, while rubbishing “any political motives” being attributed to its decision, highly-placed sources in the anti-corruption watchdog claimed that there was “strong prima facie evidence” to suggest that certain companies had benefited from allotment of coal blocks till 2003.
“The year 2003 is extremely significant since it was in 2003 only when the government introduced significant reforms in the power sector which led to a sharp increase in demand for captive coal blocks by private companies primarily for power generation. So, suddenly coal blocks became a highly-lucrative business. So even though prior to 2003 coal blocks were not as lucrative a business still a handful of companies were favoured for allotment of as many as 40 coal fields,” a senior CVC functionary said.
Sources said it was only after the vigilance commission conducted probe that it was convinced that there was enough evidence to go in for a bigger probe. “Since the CVC neither has the infrastructure nor the expertise to carry out such widespread investigation it was decided to refer the matter to the CBI as it was already conducting investigations into the coal allocation scam,” he added.