KTR vows to launch people’s agitation over auction of coal blocks

Hyderabad: Industries Minister KT Rama Rao on Thursday expressed his ire against the union government’s announcement to auction coal mines in the area of Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL). He termed it the Centre’s conspiracy to push the company into losses and privatise it through the backdoor.
Vowing to launch a people’s movement till the Centre cancelled the auction, the Minister gave a call to Parliament members cutting across party lines to raise the crucial issue in the Parliament.
During his recent visit to Ramagundam, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had assured the people of the State that Singareni would not be privatised. However, the Centre had announced in the Lok Sabha that four coal mines of SCCL would be auctioned in sharp contradiction to what the Prime Minister said.
In a statement issued here on Thursday, Rama Rao pointed out that the privatisation of the SCCL would adversely affect the State. He termed the actions of the Central government as vengeful and a conspiracy to obstruct development in the State. He said SCCL was a top performing company in Southern States in generation of thermal power. He questioned the necessity behind Centre’s auctioning of the coal blocks, though Singareni was making good profits and had the best Plant Load Factor (PLF) in the country. The Minister also accused the Modi government of discrimination towards Telangana by adopting different rules for Gujarat and Telangana. He said a large number of lignite mines were allocated to the Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation (GMDC) following the nomination method. “But why the Centre does not allocate coal mines to Singareni like it allocated lignite mines to GMDC?” he asked. Rama Rao stated that despite repeated requests from the State government, the coal workers and also the SCCL management for allocation of coal blocks, the Centre had not considered them. He said the TRS would always support the employees in their fight against the conspiracy to privatise the SCCL.