The Opposition on Wednesday stepped up the ante on double standards adopted by the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in coal block allocations, questioning the merit and basis of recommendations made by the ruling party for coal blocks in favour of companies.
Senior Congress leader and Opposition chief whip demanded a CBI probe into the process of such recommendations by the state government and subsequent utilisation of coal blocks by allocatees.
Not satisfied with the reply furnished by steel & mines minister Rajnikant Singh in response to an adjournment motion on the issue, Harichandan said, “The minister has not furnished even a single fact sought by us. We had raised questions on the basis of recommendations for coal blocks made by the state government. Also, we wanted to know if the chief minister himself or any other minister was involved in the exercise for recommendation.”
Harichandan also rebuffed claims of the state government that the Comptroller & Auditor General of India (CAG) has only castigated the Centre and not Odisha.
"It is ironical that even the chief minister has claimed that the CAG report has nothing to do with Odisha. But, there are many references to Odisha and beneficiary companies like Bhusan Steel & Strips, Monnet Ispat & Energy Ltd and Tata Power in the CAG report.”
Taking a dig at the flip-flop stand of the state government, he said, “The UPA government had proposed competitive bidding of coal while the Odisha government had opposed it strongly. The chief minister recently said that he backs auctioning of coal, which is misleading”.
"The chief minister has earlier written to the coal minister as well as the Prime Minister, pitching for coal block allocations for private companies but nowhere he has mentioned about competitive bidding for coal”, he added.
More From This Section
Referring to a letter written to the Prime Minister's office by the then Odisha industries secretary G C Pati on July 25, 2005, Harichandan wanted to know whether the letter was written after prior government approval and with the permission of the chief minister.
He urged that the chief minister should take up responsibility over the issue and resign on his own instead of the Opposition asking for his resignation.
K V Singhdeo, senior BJP leader held both the BJD and Congress responsible for the irregularities in coal block allocations.
"Since recommendations for coal block allocations have been made from the chief minister's office the state government is also responsible like the Central government”, he said.
In his reply, steel & mines minister Rajnikant Singh said, “The CAG has not named the Odisha government in its report. Besides, there is no harm in making recommendation for a coal block. The Centre has suo moto allocated coal blocks in Odisha and 13 PSUs of other states have been awarded coal blocks here.”