AIADMK State Secretary and MLA, A Anbazhagan, on Friday demanded a CBI probe into the transferring of coal mine, allocated to the Puducherry government by the Centre, to a private firm, which is allegedly owned by a union minister.
Addressing a press conference on Friday, he said the Central Government had allocated a coal mine for Puducherry in Naini coal block in Odisha in 2007 for mining 250 billion tons of coal for a period of 40 years and generating 1500 MW power through a power plant.
Since around `7500 crore was necessary for the project and the government did not have enough funds, it was given to a private vendor, JR Power Generation, through an agreement.
He alleged that it was illegally transferred to the private firm. No tender was floated on an all-India basis. Moreover, the vendor did not have any previous experience in coal mining or power generation or as an entrepreneur. He alleged that the agreement signed was also improper because a royalty of `25 per ton in the agreement was unacceptable when there were vendors who were ready to pay `300 per ton.
Moreover, as per the agreement, 25 per cent of the power generated would be supplied to Puducherry at the production cost. However, neither the coal was mined nor power generated. On the contrary, the company had sold it to another firm (which had experience of power generation) after collecting several crore of rupees, he alleged.
He also demanded that the government bring out a white paper on the status of the coal mine agreement.
Further, he urged the administration to scrap the regional reservation in admission to professional courses here as it adversely affected the students of Puducherry region. Anbazhagan said regional reservation was not there in any other state and this was against the Constitution.
It was introduced by N Rangasamy, when he was Congress Chief Minister, and Vaithilingam, the then Leader of the Opposition, did not protest.
“The DMK also supported it then and now, a former minister is supporting and another former minister opposing it. The party should make it’s stance clear on the issue,” he said.
Anbazhagan also demanded the convening of the Legislative Assembly immediately for a full Budget Session and alleged that Puducherry Lt Governor, Iqbal Singh, was not concerned with any issues of the Union Territory.