Spokesperson: Prof. Gourav Vallabh: He said that a coal scam of Rs. 6,000 crores, has come to the fore in Gujarat. In last 14 years, 60 lakh tonnes of coal have been sent from the mines of Coal India in the name of traders and small industries of Gujarat. Its average price is Rs. 1,800 crores at Rs. 3,000 per tonne, but instead of selling it to traders and industries, it has been sold in other states at a price of Rs. 8,000 to 10,000/tonne.

UPA Government had formulated a policy in the year 2007 to provide good quality coal at affordable rates to the small industries across the country. Under this policy, coal is extracted every month from West Coal Field and South-East Coal Field of Coal India for Small and Medium Industries of Gujarat. Gujarat government has to send all such information, including the list of beneficiary industries of coal, the quantity of coal required, from which agency the coal will be sent. Along with this, Gujarat Government has to send a list of State Nominated Agency (SNA). The information sent to Coal India by Gujarat Government turned out to be false. The industries in the name of which coal was extracted from Coal India in the documents did not reach those industries.

Agencies buy coal from Coal India every year in the name of beneficiary industries of Gujarat, but agencies instead of giving it to the beneficiaries earn Crores of rupees by selling coal at high prices in the open market. On the website of Coal India, other states have given information about the quantity of coal according to the financial year, full name of the agency/office concerned, telephone number, email address etc., while the Gujarat Government has given the name of the agency as abcd, asdf and contact number as 999999999 in the information column.

COINCIDENCE or EXPERIMENT – It is interesting to note that Shri Narendra Modi (CM of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014) was also holding the charge of Industry, Mines and Minerals Department of Government of Gujarat (December 2007 to December 2012) after which Shri Vijay Rupani (August 2016 to September 2021) and Shri Bhupendra Patel (Sept 2021 till date) also kept Industry, Mines and Minerals Department of Government of Gujarat with them.

Questions/Demands – 1. A time bound investigation should be constituted under the sitting judge of Supreme Court of India. This investigation should investigate involvement of all the 4 CMs of Gujarat from 2008 till date (Namely Shri Narendra Modi, Smt. Anandiben Patel, Shri Vijay Rupani and Shri Bhupendra Bhai Patel) in this Rs. 6,000 Crores scam. 2. Why in last 14 years (When this scam happened), for more than 10 years CM of Gujarat was also holding charge of Industry, Mines and Minerals department? Is this SANYOG or PRAYOG? 3. Why only few private agencies were appointed as State Nominated Agency (SNA) year after year whereas in other states respective departments of State Governments were doing the task assigned to SNA? 4. ED, SFIO, Income Tax, FIU and other agencies should register a case and investigate on this Rs. 6,000 Crores scam as it is possible that the agencies (SNA) have created fake bills for this game and evaded Income Tax, Sales Tax and GST. Wednesday, February 23, 2022