Coal calls

The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has stalled the monsoon session of Parliament over the Comptroller & Auditor General’s report criticising the government’s allocations of captive coal mines to private companies. It remains unconvinced by the prime minister’s 32-paragraph rebuttal to the CAG report in Parliament. But the prime minister could have silenced all opposition if his statement had included an important fact — that the predecessor BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) had gone some distance towards pushing the same policy. Indeed, the CAG report says as much. As far back as 2000, the NDA introduced an amendment Bill to the coal nationalisation Act in the Rajya Sabha seeking to allocate coal blocks to Indian companies for commercial purposes. The Bill was strongly opposed by trade union leaders and, in fact, is pending in the upper House.