Jharkhand CM warns of shutting coal mines over pending dues
In his letter to the Union coal minister Pralhad Joshi on March 2, the Jharkhand chief minister shared details of the outstanding dues against the subsidiaries of Coal India.
The Jharkhand government will block coal supply if the central coal mining firms do not clear “legitimate dues” of ₹1.36 lakh crore owed to the state, chief minister Hemant Soren said.
His government is committed to ensure the state’s rights are honoured, Soren said in his closing remarks at the budget session of the assembly on Friday. He made public on Saturday his letter to the Union coal ministry, underlining that his consultations with the ministry and Niti Aayog over the issue have failed to yield results.
“The central mining PSUs (public sector units) owe the state ₹1.36 lakh crore. I want to assure the house that it is our right and we will make sure we get it. This amount is only going to increase. If the Centre does not give this to us, we have resolved to snatch it. If our rights are not honoured, we will put barricades around coal resource,” Soren said in the assembly.
The central government has unprecedentedly in past two years deducted around ₹3,000 crore from the state’s consolidated fund with the Reserve Bank to settle outstanding dues of the state government-owned power distributor to the Damodar Valley Corporation, a central PSU, Soren said.
In his letter to the Union coal minister Pralhad Joshi on March 2, the chief minister shared details of the outstanding dues against the subsidiaries of Coal India. The centrally owned miners collectively owe the state government ₹101,142 crore with respect to non-payment of land compensation; ₹32,000 crore in lieu of compensation in the form of price of the mineral excavated in excess of environmental clearance limits; and ₹2,900 crore as royalty for washed coal.
