Govt faces Opposition ire over coal, port site allocation
Congress to gherao state assembly on Sep 6
The Naveen Patnaik government faced double whammy on Sunday with main opposition party Congress threatening to intensify stir over various corruption charges and members of India Against Corruption (IAC) demonstrating in front of the Chief Minister’s residence Naveen Nivas to highlight his alleged involvement in the coal scam.
Most of the supporters of IAC were arrested on their way to Naveen Nivas while a few, who managed to sneak in, were taken into custody for demonstrating in front of the CM’s residence.
The Chief Minister has already clarified that Odisha has been a votary of auctioning of natural resources including coal and other minerals. However, a letter sent by the state government in 2005 to the then Union coal minister revealed that the state was against competitive bidding of coal blocks on the ground that it would create hindrances in future investment.
The Congress party, meanwhile, said, it has decided to gherao state assembly on September 6, a day before the end of monsoon session, to highlight the corruption and inefficiency of the state government.
“This government has recommended more coal blocks for private parties than for state corporations. Most of the recommendations were made before 2009 elections,” said Niranjan Patnaik, president of Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC).
The state has signed 29 MoUs for establishment of power projects and also recommended coal blocks for these companies. However, barring one or two, most of them have not started work and it is a pity that the government has not written to the Centre demanding action against the errant companies, he alleged.
He said, the state has lost opportunity to earn huge revenue by awarding port sites to private developers and therefore, the government must scrap all those allocations and start auctioning the port sites.
“The government must take the tender or auction route to give the port development contracts,” the PCC president said.
The state government had announced its Port Policy in 2004 for development of 14 minor ports. It had then invited international competitive bids for the Gopalpur Port, following which one consortium was selected for this port project
However, after that, the government has awarded other port contracts through direct negotiation without inviting tenders or competitive bids.Besides port and coal scam, the Congress said, it would highlight the fertilizer shortage issue and discrepancies in rice distribution to BPL (below poverty line) families amid other inefficiencies of the government.
The main opposition party questioned the nature of the state government as it has not agreed to conduct a CBI inquiry into illegal mining scam, while other governments such as Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Goa have agreed to it.