The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has asked the Power Ministry to reply to the "contentious'' decision to allow Anil Ambani-owned Reliance Power to divert excess coal from its 4,000 MW Sasan ultra mega power project (UMPP) in Madhya Pradesh to its other project in the State.
“We have received CAG comments. We are examining them and we would reply to them soon,” Power Secretary P. Uma Shankar said here. However, Mr. Shankar refused to elaborate on the nature of reply sought by the CAG or what it was actually looking into. The CAG had already submitted a damaging report recently on the elder sibling Mukesh Ambani's KG basin D-6 block venture which had accused Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) of getting undue benefits and favours and had blamed the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons and the Petroleum Ministry for going out of the way to benefit the group.
Officials in the Power Ministry said CAG had sent a number of queries to the Power Ministry on the diversion of surplus coal from mines attached to Reliance Power's Sasan project to its another project, Chitrangi in Madhya Pradesh. The CAG is looking into the issue if the coal diversion to Reliance Power was allowed in keeping with the norms for the UMPPs at the time of allotment of the project or special changes were made in the norms to facilitate the same for Reliance Power. “The Power Ministry is still studying the queries sent by CAG and was in the process of drafting a response which would be sent to the auditor shortly,” the officials said.
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In a statement to the BSE, Reliance Power said: “To the best of our information, there is no CAG report on the decision taken by the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) regarding use of incremental coal from coal blocks allotted to its Ultra Mega Power Projects”.
The company's comments followed reports that CAG has raised some concerns on the issue.