CAG reports on coal, airport, power rock House
17 Aug 2012
Last week's lull in the usually stormy proceedings of India's Parliament ended today, with the Comptroller and Auditor General's report on losses to the government in the allocation of coal blocks, the Delhi airport scam and the allocation of power projects providing the opposition with fresh firepower.
The CAG report, tabled in the House today, raps the government for its failure to timely implement the competitive bidding mechanism for allocation of coal blocks and thereby causing a loss of an estimated Rs1,86,000 crore to the exchequer.
The CAG report said 25 firms, including Essar Power, Hindalco, Tata Steel, Tata Power and Jindal Steel and Power, were benefited to the tune of Rs1,86,000 crore from coal blocks allocated to them on nomination basis, instead of competitive bidding.
"The government could have tapped a part of this financial benefit by expediting decision on competitive bidding for allocation of coal blocks," CAG said in the report.
The losses to the national exchequer have been estimated on the basis of the average cost of production and average sale price of opencast mines of Coal India Ltd in the 2010-11 financial year, CAG said.
"A part of this financial gain could have accrued to the national exchequer by operationalising the decision taken years earlier to introduce competitive bidding for allocation of coal blocks," CAG noted.
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