Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal said on Wednesday that his Ministry was being cautious while rolling out the new coal block auction policy so that there are no ‘technical flaws.’
“We have given the contract to Crisil to submit a report within two months. We do not want anyone to point fingers. Crisil would submit the report shortly,” he added.
On the ‘coalgate’ scam, Jaiswal said that the Opposition feared that a debate would bring the truth to the limelight, so they are shying away. Controversies hamper the growth of the country, he said.
States’ opposition
The UPA Government floated the idea of bidding process to bring in more transparency. But States such as Rajasthan, Odisha and Chattisgarh, among others, opposed it saying industrialisation would suffer.
The Coal Ministry has identified 54 coal blocks with about 18.22 billion tonnes for auctioning. Out of this, 16 blocks with 7.27 billion tonnes are reserved for public sector companies; 16 blocks with 8.16 billion tonnes are for power companies that would be selected through tariff based bidding and the remaining 22 blocks with 2.79 billion tonnes are for companies in other sectors.
The Minister also said that Government is working out a policy for end use of surplus coal.
The policy should be in place in next two-three months, he added.