Dubbed as Coalgate by the media, the scam once again exposed corruption in the higher echelons of power in the country. The scandal involves allocation of the country’s coal deposits to public and private sector companies by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The office of Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), in a draft report in March 2012, accused the government of allocating coal blocks in an arbitrary manner during the period 2004–2009, causing a loss of Rs1.86 lakh crore.
Initially the loss was pegged at over Rs10 lakh crore, but the CAG revised it to Rs1.86 lakh crore after leaving out PSUs from its final report.
The BJP lodged a complaint regarding the matter which led to a CBI probe into the scam and demanded Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s resignation.
However, Singh read a statement in the Parliament on 27 August 2012 refuting the CAG’s report.
The scandal caused a lot of furor both inside and outside the Parliament due to its magnitude. The scandal got murkier when 43 files containing crucial information on how the coal fields were allocated to private firms went missing.
Dr Manmohan Singh was in charge of the Coal Ministry between 2006 and 2009. Some of the files missing contain information on allocations of coal fields during this period.
After a lot of hammering by the Opposition, all except seven files were traced and sent to the CBI to further the probe.
Source – DNA
BY ROHAN PRASAD
Truly disgraceful!!!!