HYDERABAD: The Singareni Colleiries Company Limited (SCCL) has gone for massive privatisation of its operations in the past few years resulting in downsizing of the organisation by at least 30 per cent post formation of Telangana state.
The company, run by the Telangana government, also allegedly facilitated allotment of coal blocks to Aurobindo Reality and Infrastructure Ltd by the Coal India even as the Bharata Rashtra Samithi took on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for proposed privatisation of Vizag Steel Plant (VSP) besides rendering injustice to SCCL.
Aurobindo has been in news ever since its managing director P. Sarath Chandra Reddy was arrested in the Delhi liquor scam.
The SCCL hogged the limelight on Monday following reports that Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao was actively considering bidding for the VSP through the coal excavating giant. The Chief Minister’s idea was "selectively" leaked to the media. The move was described as a befitting lesson to BJP’s decision to privatise the steel plant in the neighbouring state.
The Opposition leaders and trade union representatives ridiculed the very idea of bidding for VSP as a symbolic gesture against privatisation of the public sector undertakings by Modi government while promoting the private interests in SCCL on a large scale post 2014.
“Here is a man who cannot pay salaries to government staff on time on the first of every month who says Telangana will take part in the expression of interest bids. This is nothing more than yet another attempt to divert the attention of people from the TSPSC question paper leak scandal,” said BJP state chief Bandi Sanjay.
“The KCR government looted SCCL of thousands of crores of rupees forcing it to dip into its fixed deposits to pay wages to its workers. Today he shamelessly says that Telangana will bid for VSP through Singareni,” he added.
The staff strength of SCCL has come down from 65,000 to 43,000 after the state was carved out. “KCR has been gifting coal block after coal block to private players. Had they filled vacancies, 99 per cent of which will go to locals, the coal belt would not have faced the unemployment crisis,” pointed out Congress Legilsature Party leader Bhatti Vikramarka.
He questioned the SCCL decision to part with Srirampur block to Genco showing a lame excuse of poor quality. “Genco in turn privatised mining to a company close to the ruling dispensation,” he alleged.
The trade unions also question the SCCL decision to not bid for the Koyagudem coal block in Kothagudem district. “SCCL bought bid forms but was under pressure to not bid so that Aurobindo would capture the coal block as a single bidder,” alleged P. Madhava Nayak, national secretary of Akhil Bharatiya Khadan Mazdoor Sangh.
Senior Indian National Trade Union Congress leader Janak Prasad wondered how Chandrashekar Rao could ask SCCL to bid for the VSP when the Telangana state government is already due of Rs 12,000 cr to the company. "Workers welfare suffered a lot because of dues," he pointed out.
The ruling YSR Congress Party in Andhra Pradesh also took KCR's idea with a pinch of salt. "How can we even think of bidding for VSP when we are opposing the very privatisation," said industries and IT minister G. Amarnath.
