Coal news and updates

 

Parliament's public accounts committee has called top officials of power and coal ministries on Wednesday for recording of evidence on the Sasan ultra mega power project (UMPP) and coal blocks allocated to Reliance Power Ltd. 

 

The PAC has already met twice in the past two years and had recorded evidence of officials on the findings of the Comptroller and Auditor General. The auditor had flagged irregularities in the award of the UMPP to Reliance Power Ltd and allocation of additional coal block. 

 

The first PAC meeting on Sasan was held in January 2013 where evidence of the power and coal ministries officials were recorded. The last meeting was held on November 25, 2014 at the which the panel wanted the new members to adopt its draft report. 

 

However, the MPs of the newly constituted PAC sought recording of evidence once again. The reconstituted PAC is headed by senior Congress leader KV Thomas. The previous PAC was headed by BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi who had strongly defended the CAG's findings. 

 

The CAG had observed that the permission to REL to divert coal from its captive mines to a different project was in violation of the contract agreement which meant a windfall gain of over Rs 29,000 crore to the private company. 

 

The power ministry under the then UPA regime had, however, defended the decision and had said that the permission by the empowered group of ministers to use surplus coal had not vitiated the commercial bidding of Sasan UMPP. It had further held that allowing REL to divert coal to another project was with a purpose to augment power availability in Madhya Pradesh. 

 

It will be interesting to see what stand the NDA government takes on the issue as this will be the first time that the Modi government will submit its opinion before the PAC on alleged irregularities in award of the UMPP to REL.

 

 

 

Source: ToI