Narendra Modi’s BJP rose to power accusing the then Congress-led government’s hands of being dirty from cronyism in the coal business. He promised a transparent and competitive coal mine auction after the Supreme Court cancelled 204 mining licences en masse. But the dirt has now been found under his government’s fingernails.
Documents from India’s first ever auction of coal mine blocks in 2015 under the BJP government reveal the coal ministry illegally disqualified a company owned by an opposition-ruled West Bengal from the Sarisatolli mine auction, in blatant violation of a rule it had crafted a few months before the auction.
While the coal ministry’s faulty decision struck at an opposition ruled state’s ability to access resources by keeping the state-owned company out, what’s also damaging is that the coal ministry’s action helped a corporate conglomerate, RP Sanjiv Goenka Group, secure the auction for the same mine block through bid-rigging.
The country’s auditor, Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), pointed out the government was wrong in not allowing the government-owned West Bengal Power Development Corporation Limited. But the coal ministry argued in its responses to CAG that the auction saw sufficient competition, which our investigation had exposed as a mirage created by three shell firms of the Sanjiv Goenka group.
Though West Bengal has been leading the charge by opposition-ruled states accusing the Narendra Modi-led Union government of financially squeezing them, this evidence proves that a state’s access to resources was subjected to Modi government’s discretionary power from the start.
Read the investigation by Shreegireesh Jalihal on how the Modi government undermined the Supreme Court’s direction for a fair and competitive auction and looked the other way while a conglomerate rigged auction.
Click here to read the full report on our website.