Category Archives: Corruption

Illegal iron ore export – CBI registers 5 cases on SC demand

15 Saturday Sep 2012

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The CBI has registered five cases in connection with illegal iron ore export scam worth Rs 2500 crore and carried out searches at 17 locations, including in the premises of associates of jailed mining baron G Janardhan Reddy, today.
Acting on the orders of Supreme Court which asked the agency to probe the scam, the agency registered five cases and a preliminary enquiry against firms and exporters allegedly related with illegal mining and export of nearly 50 lakh metric tonnes of iron ore from Belekeri port in Karnataka.
The agency carried out searches at 17 locations in Bangalore, Karwar, Hospet and Goa.
A 10-member CBI team searched the houses of Karapudi Mahesh, Swastik Nagaraj and Somasekhar, who runs a transport firm, all aides of Reddy, as per media reports.

It seems that the CBI register corruption cases against big guns only after the intervention of Supreme Court.

Explain the guide lines on coal allocation – Supreme Court to Govt.

14 Friday Sep 2012

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The alleged irregularities in the coal block allocations came under judicial scrutiny today with the Supreme Court directing the Centre to explain if the guidelines were strictly followed in allotting the natural resource to private companies.     Turning down the Centre’s plea that the court should not go into the issue as it is being looked into by a Parliamentary committee, the apex court said “these are different exercises.”     A bench of justices R M Lodha and A R Dave said the petition raised serious questions and “it requires explanation from the Government”.     “There is difference in exercise done by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). Parliament and PAC can proceed with the issue on the basis of the CAG report. We don’t want to encroach upon their exercise but the petition raises different things altogether. There are sufficient averments which require explanation from you,” the court said.     The bench also made it clear that it is confining itself only to the aspect of guidelines formulated by the Centre for allocation of coal blocks.     The court passed the order while hearing a PIL filed by advocate M L Sharma on the alleged coalgate scam.(C0urtsey : Ganashakti )

Allocation of 3 coal blocks cancelled

13 Thursday Sep 2012

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As per the report of the committee entrusted with looking in to the coal block allocations, the allocations granted to three companies will be cancelled. The bank guarantee of 4 other companies will be confiscated for non-starting of work.

So far so good. But this small action will not be sufficient. All the coal blocks granted to private companies, denying the same to the PSU, Coal India Ltd., and done violating rules and regulations should be cancelled. Then only justice can be meted to the nation and the people who are the owners of natural resources.

Offensive is the best defence – Congress attacks CAG

11 Tuesday Sep 2012

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The UPA government, under the dark shadow of  one after another big scams like 2G, Coalgate, CWG etc. is on the offensive. Unable to counter the reports and also the daily exposing details of the scams, it has increased its attacks on the CAG stating that the CAG is acting on the agenda of the BJP. It is trying to defend the indefensible

The Congress is in a fighting mood. Whether it is CAG, media or the independent writers whoever exposes the Congress, the latter will use  CBI, Police, the entire state machinery to attack the former. The UPA government has become most intolerant. The people are watching carefully.

Congress, BJP thrives on corporate donations

11 Tuesday Sep 2012

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The donations to Congress and BJP, the ruling and main opposition parties, more than doubled in the five years between the two general elections in 2004 and 2009 as per information received through an RTI. The RTI information is based on the Income Tax paid by the parties.

The Congress Party’s income, as per income tax returns increased from Rs.222.07 crores in 2004-05 to Rs. 467.57 crore in 2009-10, a five-year period. During the same period, income of BJP increased from Rs. 104.12 crore to Rs. 258 crore.

Major portion of these are donations from the corporates and major trusts formed by the corporates.  They need not pay any tax for these donations from the trusts.

The amount shown by the political parties are only a small portion, since many donations are unaccounted and paid in cash. Further, donations for  less than Rs. 20,000 need not indicate the donors.

The political parties like Congress and BJP getting crores of rupees from the corporates and big business, naturally will make all efforts to safeguard the interests of the former and not the ordinary people. The big scams have already shown how the government favour the corporates.

 

 

Cancel Coal Block Allocations – Coal Workers Fedn.

10 Monday Sep 2012

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Kolkata, September 10: The All India Coal Workers Federation ( CITU) has issued the following statement:

All India Coal Workers Federation ( CITU) in it’s two day session held on 8-9 September 2012 at Raniganj, West Bengal decided to fight and resist the conspiracy to denationalize coal mining by the corporate – governance nexus through fishing in troubled water in the midst of exposure coal-gate scam which is a creation of their own and the controversy arisen therefrom in order to perpetuate a permanent loot on the national assets as well as on the working class and the people at the behest of private corporates, both domestic and foreign.

The Federation demanded immediate scrapping of all allocations of coal blocks to private hands and return of the same to Coal India Ltd. Concerned legislations enabling allocation of coal blocks to private corporates for so called captive purposes must also be scrapped in view of the stinking scams and perpetual loot of national resources for private and illegitimate gains by the private corporates and their mentors in the governance taking advantage of such ill-designed legislations. Coal India Ltd must be  strengthened further and be made the only nodal agency for coal mining in the country and all the coal resources in the country including future discoveries must be statutorily vested with Coal India Ltd.  Simultaneously all forms of outsourcing of coal production being done by Coal India must be totally banned.

The Federation called upon it’s affiliate unions and also the coal workers unions in general to go in for intensive campaign against the ongoing conspiracy to privatize coal mining in the country and hold massive demonstration before the headquarters of all the subsidiary companies on 1st October 2012. Further course of countrywide actions will be decided by the National Conference of All India Coal Workers Federation to be held on 28-30 November 2012 at Mython, Jharkhand. The Federation will also consult other unions in Coal industry for joint movement against the conspiracy of denationalization privatization.

Jibon Roy, National Secretary, CITU and General Secretary of All India Coal Workers Federation stated that conspiracy to denationalize and privatize coal resources of the country which were rescued from private hands and vested in State through Coal Mines Nationalisation Act 1973, has been attempted number of times earlier also by bringing Coal Mines Nationalisation (Amendment) Bill in Parliament. But on all the  occasions such attempts were foiled by the united and militant struggle by all the coal workers and by all the coal unions including serving notice for week-long strike action, which compelled the concerned Govt at the centre to shelve said Bill. Even the legislation providing for captive-mine allocation to power and cement industry was opposed by the coal trade unions and also by the Left parties in Parliament. And now such provision of allotting captive mines to private hands has landed the country to huge scam and illegitimate gains for private corporates, both domestic and foreign and a huge loss to country’s exchequer and also to Coal India. (Courtsey: Ganashakti)

Congress Ministers, MP favoured in coal allotment

09 Sunday Sep 2012

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The reports in the press had already indicated Ministers who had recommended coal block allocation to their kith and kin or close aides. Now an MP is also involved. Congress MP, Navin Jindal is  reported to have gained thousands of crores due to allotment without usual conditions on fixing of price etc. How more skeletons from the UPA Government cup board?

Who is responsible for the Parliament jam?

08 Saturday Sep 2012

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The Congress and the BJP are blaming each other for the Parliament jam. In fact, both are responsible for the same.

The UPA II government which is completely submerged in to the scams one after another is in a blind alley. Though it very well knows that it has no tangible defence in view of the evidence and proof of its involvement coming up, it has taken an offensive position as per the old saying that offence is the best form of defence. Its slogan of ‘zero loss’ to government which it raised in the 2G scam, is repeated in the Coal Gate, even after it was exposed in the earlier. It is defending the indefensible. And the parliament jam suits it best, so that more and more wrong doings are not exposed through the Parliament. Though the opposition would have allowed Parliament to function, if the coal block allocations have been cancelled and and a judicial enquiry ordered, the Congress refused, since the jam was most suitable to it.

The position of the  main opposition party BJP is not different. What it has done during the NDA regime is well before us. It does not want the old cases to come up, which certainly will be there if a detailed discussion takes place. Further it is playing politics instead of trying to find out and expose the culprits.

It was the only the Left and some non-congress, non-BJP parties which have taken  a correct position demanding that the Coal block allocations should be immediately cancelled, the guilty to be booked and the parliament debate on these issues to avoid such scams in future.  But both the Congress and UPA were not in favour since both were only playing politics.

Parliamentary Committee against allotment to private companies

03 Monday Sep 2012

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The government is again in trouble with the allotment of coal blocks to private companies. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Steel and Coal has asked the government why the coal blocks were allotted to the private companies, when the Coal India Limited, the biggest coal company in the world, has to go to foreign countries  for mining coal for the requirement of the country. And further the private companies, even after years of allotment, had not started the operations for minim coal. The report of the committee is going to be a further head ache for the government. A report in this connection from the Ganashakti is given below:

“New Delhi, Sept 3 : A parliamentary committee has expressed unhappiness over allocation of coal blocks to private firms – most of which have failed to develop them – instead of Coal India Ltd (CIL), prompting the government to state that 116 mines will be allotted to the state-owned firm.      “A paradoxical situation is arising in the country wherein the coal blocks are being allocated to private parties most of which are failing to develop coal blocks in stipulated time frame, whereas CIL, is vying with foreign players in international market to acquire coal assets abroad to meet its requirements,” said the panel in its report tabled in the Rajya Sabha today.      The remarks of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Steel and Coal comes at a time when government auditor CAG has estimated undue benefits of Rs 1.86 lakh crore to private firms on account of such allocations and uproar over it refuses to die down.      Coal India and its subsidiaries should be accorded top priority in allocation of identified 138 coal blocks, the panel said. To this, the government has said that it has identified 116 blocks to be given to the PSU.      “The proposal of CIL has been examined in detail by the Ministry of Coal. After examining the revised proposal of CIL, it has been decided to tentatively assign 116 coal blocks to CIL,” the government said in its reply.      The Committee said it is of the opinion that CIL, which is the country’s biggest coal organisation, responsible for meeting the coal demand of various sectors, “has to play a vital role in ensuring energy security of the country at a time where there has been continuous increase in the sector wise as well as overall demand for coal over the years.”      Battling low production, CIL has earmarked Rs 6,000 crore for acquisition of mines overseas and has also formed a subsidiary Coal India Africana Ltd for the such acquisitions.      CIL is the largest coal producer in the world and accounts for over 80 per cent of the domestic coal output. It had recorded about 432 million tonne production in 2011-12, as against a revised down target of 447 MT.”

 

Why not cancel coal block allocations?

31 Friday Aug 2012

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When the 2G scam was exposed, the Government was compelled to cancel the licences to the private companies.

When the ISRO- Axis scam was exposed,the government was forced to cancel the agreement.

Why the government is not cancelling the coal blocks allocated to the private companies even after the scam has been exposed? Is it necessary that a Supreme Court verdict is necessary or a massive movement by the people is necessary.

Is there any hope of better sense prevailing on the government?