Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren today indirectly blamed the Coal India Limited for underdevelopment at the panchayat level, claiming that the company owed Rs 50,000 crore to the state by way of mining compensation.
"The CIL has been mining 29,000 acre land in Jharkhand even before the freedom of the country. And the state did not get its dues of Rs 50,000 crore," said Soren.
"Had the funds been given, developmental programmes and self-employment schemes would have been taken up," an official release quoted Soren as saying at a meeting at Nirsa in Dhanbadhe.
Almost all the governments since the formation of the state on November 15, 2000 have been demanding adequate royalty from mineral resources to put Jharkhand on the map of developed states.
