Not possible for Centre to privatise SCCL: Coal minister

New Delhi: While the TRS and Telagnana Congress MPs intensified the fight against the privatisation of the Singareni Collieries, Union coal and mines minister Prahlad Joshi clarified in Lok Sabha on Wednesday that the Centre was not privatising the Singareni since Telangana is the major stakeholder.

In a reply to a question raised by Telangana Congress MP in the house, the union minister said the allegations of privatisation of SCCL was wrong and baseless as SCCL is a joint ownership of Telangana Government and Union Government on a 51:49 equity basis. Since the Telangana Government was the majority stakeholder with 51 per cent, it is not possible for the Centre to privatise the company.

Since the launch of auctions, no one is raising objections against the transparent system of auctions as the Centre has adopted the most transparent system, Joshi said, "These is also beneficial to the States which are adopting auctions. If the States want, they can participate. Many state governments are cooperating for auctions. States like Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand have also adopted auctions even though BJP is not the ruling party in those States."

He said that the entire revenue through auctions are going to the state governments. Those who were involved in coal scam does not want a transparent system of auction, the union minister said. Congress MP N Uttam Kumar Reddy and TRS MPs N Nageshwara Rao and Ranjeet Reddy alleged that the Centre was privatizing the SCCL by selling its stakes to the corporate companies. They took strong objection to the sale of coal blocks to the private companies when the state governments performance in the mining was excellent.

TRS MPs threatened to fight against the privatisation of SCCL in the parliament if the Centre did not respond to their demands in the ongoing winter session.