The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament is set to begin a thorough probe into the coal block allocations. The first meeting of the top financial panel on the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG) report on the scam will be held on Friday.
The CAG will brief the panel on the report, particularly on how it calculated that the exchequer lost Rs 1.84 lakh crore due to the Government’s decision not to auction the coal blocks. The Coal Ministry would contest CAG’s calculation.
CAG Vinod Rai will be present in the meeting while the Coal Ministry team would be led by Coal Secretary S.K Srivastava; Joint Secretary A.K. Bhalla; and Coal India Chairman and Managing Director S. Narsing Rao.
The Congress members in the panel are all set to question the auditor’s conclusions. The party has been maintaining that the CAG has crossed its mandate and the loss figures were not substantiated.
The Opposition wants to go to the root of the scam. The BJP has been demanding the Prime Minister’s resignation on the issue.
Chairman of the panel Murli Manohar Joshi had said that the Prime Minister’s slamming of the CAG report would create a difficult situation in the functioning of the PAC.
The Coal Ministry is preparing a defence and would inform the PAC that CAG did not take into account the points highlighted during the exit meeting. Thus, the figure of Rs 1.84 lakh crore was not a correct calculation.
“The Ministry would apprise PAC that the States opposed competitive bidding. At the same time, allocations were done as per the notified rules and screening committee recommendations,” said a Coal Ministry official, who would appear before the PAC.
“The Ministry will provide official documents including minutes of the screening committees if PAC wants,” the official said.
Sources in the PAC said it planned at least one meeting in two weeks as a number of CAG reports were still pending with the panel.
The PAC will soon start considering the performance audit reports on Delhi Airport and Ultra Mega Power Projects.