Director of AMR under scanner for allegedly twisting allocation facts

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) today questioned Arvind Jayaswal in the coal block allocation scam. Jayaswal, director of AMR Iron and Steel Pvt Limited, was questioned for allegedly misrepresentating and concealing the fact that the company had already been allotted five blocks when it had applied for the one at Bander in Maharashtra. AMR was required to provide details of its allocations but is said to have concealed this because it would have weakened its claim and also because the company wanted to avoid scrutiny, the CBI believes.

IMG recommends bank guarantee deduction of Tata Power and Hindalco

JSW Steel and Himachal Emta Power today lost a coal block in West Bengal, while Tata Power and Hindalco Industries are likely to lose the bank guarantee for their block in Jharkhand. Today, the government cancelled the allocation of the Gourangdih ABC block in West Bengal’s Raniganj coalfields. Deallocation of the block, being developed by JSW Steel and Himachal Emta Power, was recommended on Friday by an inter-ministerial group (IMG) looking into irregularities in the allocation of coal blocks.

The ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) has been accused of allocating over 1.86 lakh hectares of forest land for mining without the consent of gram sabhas as has been made mandatory under the Forest Rights Act.

In all, 1,82,389 hectares of forest land was diverted by the environment ministry between January 2008 and August 2011. The Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) headed by T. Chatterjee, secretary of MoEF, has recommended diversion of four additional projects located in prime forest land in 2012. This includes 151,762 hectares for the Lara Super Thermal Power Plant in the Raigarh district of Chattisgarh and 766,393 hectares of forest land for the Talaipall Coal Mining Project in the Raigarh and Dharmajaigarh forest divisions of Chattisgarh.

PMO snubs former coal secretary for his bid to ensure transparency in allocation of coal blocks.

Deallocates Gourangdih ABC, jointly given to JSW Steel & Himachal EMTA, with this, govt has approved cancellation of licenses of 5 coal blocks

The Government today decided to deallocate one more mine - Gourangdih ABC, jointly given to JSW Steel and Himachal EMTA besides deduction of bank guarantees of two allottees for failing to develop mines within time. This follows the recommendation made by Inter-Ministerial group (IMG) which is scrutinising 29 blocks awarded to the private parties out of the total 58 which were given show cause notices for delays in development and some of these find mention in CAG report.

With a number states deciding to ban use and sale of gutka, the Union health ministry has urged the Uttar Pradesh (UP) government to follow its counterparts in rest of the country in banning sale of such products in the state.

So far, states of Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Bihar, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Delhi have implemented the provision as envisaged under Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) regulation and enforced enforce ban on manufacture, sale and storage of gutka and pan masala containing tobacco and nicotine in their states. Chandigarh also followed the suit and banned the sale, manufacture and storage of gutka.

apex court has seven queries on: Petitioner’s plea for quashing allotments in six states: Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh.

SC rejects government’s contention that PAC is right forum to debate CAG report

The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice to the Centre on a public interest suit seeking to quash the allotment of 194 coal blocks to private companies in six states. The government will have to respond to six questions from the court. Solicitor General R F Nariman accepted the notice and the case would be heard after two months.

The court has asked the government to produce the guidelines and the process adopted for the allocation of blocks. It also wants to know if there are any in-built mechanisms to ensure the allocations do not lead to distribution of largesse unfairly to a few private firms.

Monnet Ispat may be asked to submit bank guarantee amounting to three years’ royalty

Cracking the whip on private companies for failing to develop coal blocks allocated to them within a time frame, the Coal Ministry on Thursday said it accepted the recommendations of the Inter-Ministerial Group (IMG) and notified de-allocation of four blocks and deduction of bank guarantee in the case of three companies.