Centre has no authority to privatise SCCL: Kishan Reddy

Hyderabad: Union Minister G Kishan Reddy on Saturday clarified that the Centre does not have authority to privatise Singaranie Colleries and rubbished the reports that the Central government plans to privatise the State-run coal company. He said 51 per cent of the share in the Singareni is with the Telangana State government and it is the State government which runs the show in Singareni and not the Centre, he pointed out.

The Union Minister said that the Kalawakuntla family is making baseless allegations against the BJP government at the Centre about the privatisation of Singrani Collories and the allocation of coal blocks.

Addressing a joint media conference with party national executive member Vivek Venkataswamyin Hyderabad on Saturday, he reiterated that none other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi had clarified that there is no proposal with the Centre to privatise Singareni Calories.

Kishan Reddy said that Chief Minister K Chandrasekhara Rao could not tolerate the growing popularity of the BJP and people's support to the BJP, and said that the allegations of the Centre discriminating against Telangana vis a vis Gujarat and Rajasthan are baseless.

Kishan Reddy alleged that Chief Minister KCR's family is spreading malicious propaganda that SCCL is being privatised. He said coal mines are privatized in open auction. He said that there were many scandals in the allocation of coal mines during the UPA regime. Prime Minister Narendra Modi cleaned all of them and allocated coal mines in a transparent manner. BJP national executive member Vivek Venkataswamy alleged that Tedicherla mines is a huge scam of around 20,000 crore. He said that KCR was responsible for handing over of Tedicherla Mines to a private company called AMR.

He demanded immediate cancellation of the contract of handing over Tadicharla Mines to the private company AMR. Demanding a thorough probe into it, alleging a Rs 20,000 crore scandal in the privatisation of Tadicherla block, he also asked whose company is it. Does the Kalvakuntla family have any share in it?