-The Hindu ‘Competitive bidding would favour private players, give rise to monopolies’ Even as the controversy over the Comptroller and Auditor-General’s (CAG) report on coal blocks allocation that reportedly caused a loss of Rs. 1.86 lakh crore to the national exchequer rages, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has said coal allocations and mining, in future, should be done through the public sector. In an article in party organ People’s Democracy, party general...

-The Hindu The parliamentary stalemate continues on one of the greatest corruption scandals in Indian history. Allocation of natural resources has been a subject matter of public debate in the last two decades, particularly with the entry of the private sector in infrastructure development. Minerals are an important natural resource. The private sector has a great role to play in development of mineral-based industries. However, the policy of allocation of these...

-The Economic Times The disruption of Parliament over coal raises four issues. The first is the BJP not allowing a debate to take place on the so-called coal scam. The second is the machinations in coal and the Comptroller and Auditor General's estimate of loss and gain.  The third is the CAG suggesting that the government should have overridden the objections of state governments to the Centre's proposal to hold auctions for...

-The Hindu “I seek the indulgence of the House… 3. …I want to assure Hon’ble Members that as the Minister in charge [for a part of the time covered by the report], I take full responsibility for the decisions of the Ministry. I wish to say that any allegations of impropriety are without basis and unsupported by the facts. 10. The observations of the CAG are clearly disputable. 11. The policy of allocation of...

-The Hindu CAG’s concept of presumptive loss flawed: Chidambaram Upset at the “unreasonable” disruption of Parliament by the BJP on the issue of allocation of coal blocks and the CAG report, the government went on the offensive on Friday, terming totally flawed the Comptroller and Auditor-General’s concept of presumptive loss and maintaining that no loss took place because the coal was still unexploited. “The policy for allocation of coal blocks has been the...