Already facing CBI probe over alleged irregularities in allocation of coal blocks, the Union Coal Ministry is in another tight spot as several files and documents related to the blocks in question have either gone missing or are untraceable from Shastri Bhavan. And so in what can be described as a telling example of 'bureaucratic babudom', the ministry has decided to set up a committee to be headed by the Additional Secretary to examine the situation arising out of lost files and how to locate them.
According to information available with The Pioneer, the Coal Ministry has floated an internal order where it has been decided to form an eight-member committee under Additional Secretary (in the Coal Ministry), which would review reasons behind non-availability of files related to the allocation of the specific coal blocks which the CBI is currently investigating.
Sources said that the panel, which would have representatives from the ministries of steel and power apart from senior officials of the Coal Ministry as well as from Coal India ltd (CIl), would examine and review the non-availability of files and documents related to the coal blocks in question and would then take adequate action to locate them.
The committee would be holding meetings on a weekly basis and give regular updates to the Government, they added.
The situation has arisen after it was earlier this year found that around 200-odd files related to the allocation of coal blocks being probed by the investigating agencies have not been traced. In fact, the situation is so peculiar in the Coal Ministry that according to reliable sources, even the minutes of the meetings of the screening committee (headed by the then Coal Secretary and which decided on whom to give blocks) which were held during 2004-2009 when these blocks were allotted, are not available as they were never recorded.
The current regime in the Coal Ministry in its defence has all along been saying that it is giving full cooperation to the ongoing probe as no blocks were allotted after 2009 (when Sriprakash Jaiswal took charge of the ministry and only last year the ministry began the modalities to give out blocks through auction, tariff-based bidding and Government dispensation route).
Officials, in fact, have been claiming that they are hamstrung by the fact that several documents and files related to that period (2004-09) are either lost or untraceable and, therefore, the need arose to form a panel to review the situation.
At the same time though, sources pointed out that forming an internal committee to look into the reasons behind files going missing is quite absurd as it would serve no purpose unless the CBI itself seeks the files on priority basis or the Prime Minister's Office intervenes in the matter and creates pressure on the Coal Ministry to produce the documents.
Meanwhile, this latest move by the Coal Ministry is likely to attract further criticism as already doubts have been raised in the past on the manner in which the files related to the coal blocks in question went missing especially at a time when investigations in the entire matter are currently on.