Coal block auctions to wait till CBI wraps up allocation probe - Indian Express

Priyadarshi Siddhanta : New Delhi, Wed Jun 12 2013, 04:15 hrs The government plans to ease up on the auction of coal blocks till the Central Bureau of Investigation completes its inquiry into the earlier coal block allocations. The investigating agency has requisitioned 10 more files from the coal ministry last week in addition to the 760 it already has, which insiders say are connected to the FIRs filed on Tuesday against Jindal Steel, its vice chairman and managing director Navin Jindal and former minister of state for coal Dasari Narayana Rao. "With the screening committee route for allocating of mines facing questions from the CBI, there is a growing feeling within the ministry that there should not be any overdrive to allocate fresh mines. Some of our senior officers have reasoned that we should go slow to make future distributions foolproof in terms of their allocation process. They have also reasoned that even competitive bidding route needs to be firmed up more through more stakeholder consultations," a source said. On Tuesday, the ministry issued show-cause notices on 12 firms, including NTPC for delay in commissioning Talaipalli coal block and SAIL for Sitanala block. Others in the list include Bhushan Steel and Power and Abhijeet Infrastructure besides some state government entities. The delay is despite the ministry issuing a notice on its website in May that it plans to auction mines while it has also appointed Crisil as consultants to decide on the parameters for the auction. A coal ministry official said the way the present allocations are being scrutinised, there could be questions on the fairness of the auction route too like the possibility of the bidders forming a cartel. Besides, the coal-rich states have contended that since they are the custodian of minerals within their domain, their companies should get more mines for power generation, the source added. ... contd. ALSO READ Coal block auctions to wait till CBI wraps up allocation probe Amex card user to get gift card worth Rs 5,000 on Blackberry Q10 buy Food security ordinance on Cabinet agenda tomorrow Sony Computer Entertainment PlayStation 4 wins opening skirmish in new-gen console war Please read our terms of use before posting comments TERMS OF USE: The views, opinions and comments posted are your, and are not endorsed by this website. You shall be solely responsible for the comment posted here. The website reserves the right to delete, reject, or otherwise remove any views, opinions and comments posted or part thereof. You shall ensure that the comment is not inflammatory, abusive, derogatory, defamatory &/or obscene, or contain pornographic matter and/or does not constitute hate mail, or violate privacy of any person (s) or breach confidentiality or otherwise is illegal, immoral or contrary to public policy. Nor should it contain anything infringing copyright &/or intellectual property rights of any person(s). via Business - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNHl3HFTim0_gN2EBgxZ4En6tXk5OQ&url=http://www.indianexpress.com/news/coal-block-auctions-to-wait-till-cbi-wraps-up-allocation-probe/1127993/

Put the internet to work for you. via Personal Recipe 2910127