It is Rs37,80,000,000,000 loss to the country

August 18, 2012
coal_block

New Delhi, August 18: The CAG reports on allocation of coal blocks, ultra mega power projects and public private partnership in Indira Gandhi international airport have put the UPA government in a tight spot as the revenue loss from these projects amount to a whopping Rs3.78 lakh crore approximately.

Terming it the “biggest ever scam”, the Opposition immediately went for the government’s jugular. For the next few days, one can expect Parliament to witness pandemonium over this as the BJP-led NDA sharpens its claws and prepares to launch a frontal assault on the government.

To make the calculation simpler, let us look at the breakup: For coal allocation, the loss is Rs1.86 lakh crore, for the power projects it is 0.29 lakh crore and for the Indira Gandhi international airport 1.63 lakh crore (as quoted by the Delhi International Airport Limited). The CAG has a conservative figure of Rs24,000 crore.

For the government, this was a huge loss of face because it was prime minister Manmohan Singh who held charge of the coal portfolio when the coal blocks allocations were done. Going by the figures revealed by the CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General), the coal block allocation scam alone is the biggest ever and has caused the government a staggering loss of Rs 1.86 lakh crore. This surpasses the figure of the 2G scam, which hovered around Rs 1.76 lakh crore.

Even as the Opposition demanded Singh’s resignation, the Congress fielded Manish Tiwari to take the brunt of the NDA criticism. Tiwari was scathing in his attack on the CAG reports.

“When the coal blocks have been allotted for captive use and the coal is not for sale, how can the auditor arrive at any figure of the gain that would accrue to the allottees?” he asked.

Stressing that even in the 2G case, the Supreme Court had not endorsed the CAG’s concept of a presumptive loss, Tiwari said the CAG’s calculations have, in fact, no basis.

On the other hand, summarily dismissing the Opposition’s demand for Singh’s resignation, Union coal minister Sriprakash Jaiswal said, “The ministry does not agree with the assessments made by the auditor. There was nothing wrong with the process of finalising the allottees as it was done under the existing process.”

The BJP was unfazed by the Congress logic and its assertions against the CAG. The party made a simple point. It went on insisting that Singh should take moral responsibility and resign. After all, between 2004 and 2009, Singh was for the most part the minister for coal except for brief periods when Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader Shibu Soren took charge of the portfolio.

BJP leaders Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley came down heavily on the prime minister holding him directly responsible for the loss of Rs1.86 lakh crore to the exchequer. The BJP leaders pointed out that the CAG had shown how the government had not implemented its own decision to allow competitive bidding — a decision which was taken on June 18, 2004.

“He [Singh] has to seriously introspect, impose on himself the moral censure of quitting himself,” Jaitley said.

Swaraj said the party would go on demanding the resignation of the prime minister in Parliament.

In these politically impactful reports, the CAG has slammed the UPA government for delaying the competitive bidding process in the allocation of coal blocks. According to the report tabled in Parliament, 57 coal blocks were allocated to private sector companies that may have resulted in windfall profit for the companies while the government suffered heavy losses.

In another report on ultra mega power projects, the CAG has questioned the government’s decision to allow Reliance Power to use excess coal from the allocated blocks for its other projects.

According to the CAG report, Reliance Power, at the time the contract was awarded, had said the company would be able to use 20 million tonnes from the two blocks and there would be sufficient coal for the Sasan UMPP.

In the same report, the CAG has urged the government to review the award of the Chhatrasaal coal block to Reliance Power for providing level playing field to other power developers. The CAG has pegged the profit of the private power company to Rs29,033 crore.

These three critical reports meant yet another beating for Congress that already has a battered image. Already, the government, suffering from a policy stasis because of a lack of political consensus, has failed to defend itself in the face of huge and unprecedented corruption charges.

Now, the coal block allocation scam threatens to taint the Mr Clean persona of the prime minister. The Congress will require a lot of positive energy to emerge from this crisis with its head held high.


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Agencies
May 19,2020

New Delhi, May 19: Former Union Minister P Chidambaram said that as the fourth phase of the nationwide lockdown amid the coronavirus scare began from Monday, his thoughts were with the people of Kashmir who were in a "terrible lockdown within a lockdown."

The senior Congress leader said that at least now, the people in the rest of India will understand that he dubbed the "enormity of the injustice" done to those who were detained in Kashmir and those still under detention" immediately before and after the abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution on August 5, 2019.

Chidambaram said that former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti was the "worst sufferer" of preventive detention and even courts had shirked their constitutional duty with respect to detainees.

"The worst sufferers are Mehbooba Mufti and her senior party colleagues who are still in custody in a locked-down state in a locked-down country. They are deprived of every human right," he said in a statement.

"I cannot believe that for nearly 10 months, the courts will shirk their constitutional duty to protect the human rights of citizens," he added.

The detention on Mehbooba Mufti under the Public Safety Act (PSA) had been extended for three more months on May 5. Booked under the stringent PSA, she was initially kept at the Hari Niwas guesthouse in Srinagar but later shifted to a Tourism Department hut in the Chashma Shahi area.

She was shifted to her Gupkar Road official residence on April 7.

Besides Mehbooba Mufti, two other former Chief Ministers -- Omar Abdullah and his father Farooq Abdullah -- were also detained under the PSA but later released.

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News Network
March 23,2020

Thiruvananthapuram, Mar 23: Amid a spurt in coronavirus cases, Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan has asked the Centre to give the states authority to give clearances for manufacturing masks, gloves and sanitisers.

In a letter addressed to prime minister Narendra Modi, Vijayan said during the crisis, masks and sanitisers are needed in large numbers.

"As an interim, states must be given authority to give clearances of manufacturing of items related to medical devices, sanitisers, chemicals, etc. which are needed for fighting Covid-19," Vijayan said in the letter.

He also sought permission for the state home department to use drones for the relevant applications related to Covid-19.

"In China and elsewhere in the world, drones have been used extensively in minimising human contact, disinfection, etc. Unfortunately, with the current laws pertaining to the use of drones, none of these is possible in India," the chief minister said.

He also sought permission to access and use facilities available with all central institutions and research labs operating in the state.

The chief minister shared the letter on his Twitter handle.

With 15 new positive cases of Covid-19, the total number of infected persons in Kerala had gone up to 67, including the three who were discharged after recovery last month.

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News Network
March 10,2020

Mar 10: Indian energy tycoon Mukesh Ambani is no longer Asia’s richest man, relinquishing the title to Jack Ma after oil prices collapsed along with global stocks.

The rout, exacerbated by mounting fears that the spread of the novel coronavirus will thrust the world into a recession, erased $5.8 billion from Ambani’s net worth on Monday and pushed him to No. 2 on the list of Asia’s richest people, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Ma, the Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. founder who relinquished the No. 1 ranking in mid-2018, is back on top with a $44.5 billion fortune, about $2.6 billion more than Ambani.

Oil plunged the most in 29 years on Monday as Saudi Arabia and Russia vowed to pump more in a struggle for market share. The slump comes just as the coronavirus is spurring the first decline in demand in more than a decade. That raises questions about whether Ambani’s flagship Reliance Industries Ltd. will be able to cut net debt to zero by early 2021, as he has pledged. The plan hinges on a proposal to sell a stake in the group’s oil and petrochemicals division to Saudi Arabian Oil Co., the world’s biggest crude producer.

While the coronavirus has curtailed some of tech giant Alibaba’s businesses, the damage has been mitigated by increased demand for its cloud computing services and mobile apps.

Reliance Industries, by comparison, has no such silver lining. The Indian conglomerate’s shares plunged 12% on Monday, the most since 2009, extending this year’s decline to 26%. Alibaba’s American depositary receipts have slipped 6.8% so far in 2020.

Ma reclaims crown after Reliance shares were pummeled in 2020.

Few of the world’s billionaires fared well in Monday’s collapse as the S&P 500 Index and Dow Jones Industrial Average each plunged more than 7.5%, the most since the 2008 financial crisis, threatening to end the longest bull market in history. But no one did worse than those whose fortunes are underpinned by oil. Wildcatter Harold Hamm’s fortune was cut almost in half to $2.4 billion and fellow oil magnate Jeff Hildebrand lost $3 billion, bumping both from Bloomberg’s 500-member wealth ranking.

In a pivot toward new businesses such as telecommunications, technology and retail, Ambani’s Reliance Industries has piled on billions of dollars of debt over the years.

It spent almost $50 billion -- most of it funded by borrowings -- to build Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd., which became India’s No. 1 wireless carrier within about three years of its debut. As the mobile venture took off, Ambani also unveiled plans for an e-commerce empire to rival Amazon.com Inc. in India.

Addressing concerns over the liabilities, Ambani pledged in August to cut the group’s net debt to zero from about $21 billion as of last March. The Aramco deal is crucial to that plan for which Reliance Industries has valued its oil-to-chemicals division at $75 billion including debt, implying a $15 billion valuation for the 20% stake that’s for sale.

Signs of a potential delay to that deal unnerved some investors, hammering the stock since it touched a record high on Dec. 19.

Reliance Industries expected the Aramco transaction to be completed by March, but people familiar with the matter said in February that talks were still ongoing to bridge differences between the two parties over the deal’s structure.

Adding to the uncertainty, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration has petitioned a court to halt the proposed stake sale, threatening a key source of funds needed to pare net debt.

But Ambani, 62, may soon bounce back from the setback, said Harish H.V., managing partner at ECube Investment Advisors in Bengaluru, India.

“The game isn’t over,” he said. “Ambani has successfully built a robust business model which would keep him in the game. Moreover, his telecom business will start yielding results in coming years.”

Comments

SmR
 - 
Tuesday, 10 Mar 2020

The curses of the bank depositors savings which vanished with collapsing economy and fraudlent seems to have gradully affecting riches of Ambani's.

 

AU
 - 
Tuesday, 10 Mar 2020

in Holy Quran Allah says; but they plan and Allah plans, and Allah is the best planners..(Surah Al Anfal 8:30)

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