NDA allotted coal blocks sans norms, says Jayanti Natarajan

PANAJI: Union Minister for Environment and Forests Jayanti Natarajan today said that coal block allotments during NDA regime were done without following proper guidelines.

Talking to reporters here, she said that the NDA which was involved in allotting 32 coal blocks during its tenure without following any guidelines. She alleged that the screening committee was given a free hand during NDA's tenure.

"BJP which is now raking up issue in the parliament was responsible for allotting these coal blocks," she said, adding that UPA on the other hand had followed stringent guidelines during the allocation.

The minister said that inter-ministerial group screening the coal block allocation will also scrutinise these allotments during the NDA regime.

She said that the Comptroller Auditor General ( CAG) in its report had not spoken about coal block allotments between 1998-2004 when the NDA was in power.

She said that the BJP is playing up current observations in the CAG report as a 'scam' , when auditors have pointed out that "the allocation to government run corporations could have resulted in profits".