Jamshedpur, June 24: Former Chief Minister Raghubar Das has criticised Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s stance on the auction of coal blocks for commercial mining. He said that the state government is disrupting the mine auction on the pretext of displacement and rehabilitation, which is meaningless. He said that there is complete transparency in the auction process. This auction will be done online and anyone can participate in the online auction from anywhere. The current auction will generate substantial revenue for the state, which will enable the development of the state.
Das said that the Chief Minister himself has been giving contradictory statements about the coal block auction. This is a direct anti-development move of the state government, ignoring the facts, turning away from the truth.
He has said that the Congress on whose support the present state government is running, gave birth to displacement and black water. The way state’s chief minister and minister are reacting to the coal block, it seems that they either do not know the facts or are looking for an excuse to confront the Union government.
He has said that there is no system of rehabilitation of the displaced from the coal mines, deprived of rights, people are forced to drink red water and black water, due to the wrong policies of the previous Congress government of the Center and the state. The former Chief Minister said that the previous government formed under his leadership had started to lease land allotted to HEC, Bokaro Steel Plant, CCL etc. in view of the three-party policies of the Center and the State. No one had paid attention to this before. An amount ranging from 1000 to 1200 crores is sent to Jharkhand under the District Mining Fund by the Modi government of the Center. With this amount, the previous state government formed under my leadership has spent the entire amount for laying pipelines for drinking water, so work is going on the water supply scheme in Dhanbad, Bokaro, Ramgarh, Chaibasa, Godda etc.
Describing the start of auction process of coal mines by the central government in the state interest, he said that at present 730 million tonnes of coal is being produced in the country and about 240 million tonnes Coal is being imported. Coal India Ltd. produces 85 percent of the coal produced in the country. (CCL). About 430 mines are operated by CCL. Apart from this, there is a lot of coal available, which has not been mined by CCL for 50 years. Now these abandoned coal blocks have been opened for mining by the private sector.
