CAG admits to existence of ‘draft report’ on coal blocks

India’s Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Vinod Rai said that a "draft report" on the coal mining scam actually existed, reports said. The final report by the CAG would be submitted in a month and would quantify losses, reports added. Providing some relief to the Government on the coal auction issue raked in Parliament on Thursday, India’s Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Vinod Rai told Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that the details in a newspaper report on matter were "exceedingly misleading". Media reports on Thursday stated that the CAG’s draft report on the ‘Performance Audit of Coal Block and Allocations’ revealed that 155 coal blocks were allotted to private companies without auction between 2004 and 2009 which caused the exchequer a loss of Rs. 10.7tn. About 100 companies, including private entities and public utilities in industries such as power, steel and cement benefitted from move, reports said. In a letter to the PM, the CAG said that the details in the news report were observations under discussion at a very preliminary stage and do not even constitute a pre-final draft, according to a recent statement issued on the CAG website. Also, the CAG cited a "change in thinking" over how to compute loss to the exchequer, pegged at Rs. 10.7tn in media reports. Reports said citing a CAG official that the figure was expected to qualify as gains to the companies and not loss to the exchequer. This statement would hold truth as the government did not receive any revenue or profit share or even licence fee on blocks allotted to entities. Interestingly, PM Manmohan Singh was in charge of the Coal Ministry for part of the period mentioned. Meanwhile, the government is trying to turn the guns on the BJP government as about 40 coal blocks were already auctioned before the UPA regime between 1993 and 2004.