No flaw in coal block allotment: Sriprakash Jaiswal

Union coal minister Sriprakash Jaiswal on Wednesday reiterated his claim that there was no irregularity in allotment of coal blocks and said the UPA government had followed the standard set by the previous NDA regime in making the allotments.

Talking to newspersons at Koyla Bhavan, the headquarters of the Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL) here, Jaiswal said there were 54 blocks up for auction. Of them, 12 are for commercial mining, two for steel and 16 for power. Remaining 24 mines will be auctioned. He expected that auction would be completed within two months to make the process of allotment more transparent and facilitating more producers in the field. He denied any scam in the allotment of coal blocks and said the irregularities were noticed in the past.

The Centre consulted the state governments before making the allotments. In the screening committees set up by the Centre, chief secretaries of the states were members. In the UPA government, the government allotted coal blocks by issuing advertisements in the newspapers," the minister said.

Source: Times of India