10 Facts On Rs 1.86 Lakh Crore ‘Coalgate’ Loss

10 Facts On Rs 1.86 Lakh Crore ‘Coalgate’ Loss, CAG says coal scam bigger than 2G scam; reports on power and aviation too blast govt. 10 facts on Rs 1.86 lakh crore ‘Coalgate’ loss, The Comptroller and Auditor General on Friday tabled three reports — on power, coal and airports — in Parliament, almost indicting the UPA government for allegedly ‘causing’ a loss of more than Rs 1.86 lakh crore to the exchequer.

The report has also lambasted the government for favouring private companies who benefitted from such ‘largesse’, giving the opposition parties a lot of fodder to them to hit out at the government with.

The CAG has said that the so-called ‘Coal-gate’ scam was even bigger than the 2G scam.

So here are 10 facts on the issues that CAG has blasted the government over:

1. In a severe indictment of the UPA government, the CAG report on coal says that 57 coal fields, in the period 2005 to 2009, were allocated to 100 private companies instead of being auctioned or brought under competitive bidding. This, the report says, was an opaque, subjective allotment and caused these private companies to benefit to the tune of Rs 1.86 lakh crore.

2. This will be highly embarrassing for the ruling UPA dispensation as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself was at the helm of affairs at the Union Coal Ministry from 2006 to 2009. While the Congress is said to have prepared a strong defense on the issue, it is likely to face a major storm from the Opposition parties in Parliament. The CAG report on coal puts the prime minister in the dock who allegedly allotted 44 billion tonnes of coal at throwaway prices when he was the coal minister.

3. Sources indicate that the government will say that the CAG calculation on the alleged loss to the exchequer – Rs 1.86 lakh crore — is inaccurate as the CAG has not accounted for the varying cost of coal extraction from mine to mine, etc.