Out to defend the deeds done by the UPA Government during its 10-year stay in power at the Centre the Congress has questioned the decision of the Supreme Court revoking 214 coal blocks allocated arbitrarily. The party going even further has also lamented over the decision to levy Rs 292 per ton of coal from retrospective effect on the mining companies.
“We have objections to the order of the Supreme Court. The apex court even cancelled the lease of those mines which were in operation and producing coal. Also they decided to charge Rs 292 for every ton of coal for they have already mined retrospectively. Doing this is not okay in my mind. Would the industries survive in this fashion,” questioned AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh on Thursday in a press briefing.
The Supreme Court had on September 24 this year cancelled all the coal blocks but four out of 218 allocated since 1993 terming the process adopted as illegal and ordered for fresh allotments through transparent manner. The most number of blocks were given during the UPA regime which followed the previously owned policy despite changed circumstances and heightened economic activities. The practice had forced the CAG to compute presumptive loss of over Rs 1.80 lakh crore to the exchequer.
Digvijay, quite famous as ‘loose cannon’ in the political circles, toed the line maintained by Congress Ministers of the Manmohan Singh Government at the Centre and said that the ruling Government had no powers to amend the law in place for allocation of the blocks.
“Manmohan Singh was for taking the auction route but the then government had no rights to do that. It was the UPA that later made the law for auctioning. But now the Modi Government has made provision in the ordinance which would encourage privatisation of the coal blocks. The Congress is not in the favour of it and wants the coal blocks to go only in the hands of the end users and not letting these privatised,” said the senior Congressman.
He also counted on “pro-poor” policies of the previous Government and named NREGA, land Acquisition Bill, Food Security Bill, RTI etc to drive home his point. Singh at the same time also charged the BJP Government for diluting the steps.
Though when asked why despite doing so much the people rejected the Congress, he blamed it for 10 years of anti-incumbency and failing to wipeout the perception from the minds of common masses.
Coming to poll bound Jharkhand, Digvijay Singh expressed hope that the party would fare well. “Congress may be behind (with BJP) in terms of advertisements but our workers are putting in great effort on grounds. We would surely score better,” he said and also issued an appeal to the voters of the State to not let the natural resources go into private hands.