Ex-coal secy says PM responsible for coal scam

Former Union coal secretary P C Parakh said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was responsible for the coal block allocation scam and the country’s subsequent policy paralysis. He said so at an event here on Monday to release his book, titled Crusader or conspirator – Coalgate and Other Truths.

Parakh said coal ministers Shibu Soren and Dasari Narayana Rao had reversed the prime minister’s decision on auction of coal blocks. “I do not know why the prime minister did not speak then. But if the PM had persisted, Coalgate would not have happened,” Parakh said at the event.

He also rubbished allegations made by the Congress party on the book’s timing and on his receiving funds from the Bharatiya Janata Party. “I had started writing this book a long time ago and the idea is to help young civil service officers. So, I do not know why these allegations have come up. Second, my book criticises all parties,” he said.

The book written by Sanjaya Baru, the PM’s former media advisor, released last week, had said Singh lacked control over his government. Parakh, who was the coal secretary when Soren and then Singh headed it, has also said in his book that the PM had been leading a government over which he had no authority.

While Baru’s The Accidental Prime Minister had given out insider tales on how Congress president Sonia Gandhi ran the government from behind the scenes, Parakh’s 288-page book says Manmohan Singh’s image was seriously dented with the telecom and coal block allocation scams. Claiming resistance from Opposition-ruled states in implementation of open bidding for coal blocks, Parakh wrote that the PM made no mention of the concerted and repeated attempts by his own ministers, Soren and Rao, to obstruct, sabotage and stall open bidding.

The former bureaucrat says he realised the “limitations in which the PM functioned” as he was “unable to counter vested interests within his government and party”, though he had a spotless record of personal integrity.

Parakh was named last year in a First Information Report registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation in the scam, for allocation of a block to the Aditya Birla Group’s Hindalco.

The book says while the PM agreed with his suggestion of opening the coal sector for commercial mining, it would not have been possible to get the amendment through because of strong resistance from the Left parties. “This stance is unfortunate. The government went all out on issues such as the Indo-US nuclear deal and foreign direct investment in retail... it did not show the same determination in opening up the coal sector,” he writes.

At the book release event, T S R Subramaniam, former cabinet secretary, said the Indian civil service had lost its sheen due to political influence and reform in the administrative services was a must. Former Supreme Court judge G S Singhvi said his generation had failed to eradicate corruption from society.