'Shibu, Dasari sought bribe for Coal India posting'

More skeletons seem to be tumbling out of the UPA’s cupboard during polls, with a former bureaucrat making allegations against functioning of the Union government.

The latest is by former coal secretary P C Parakh, who himself faces an inquiry for his alleged role in the allocation of coal blocks.

Parakh has charged in a new memoir that two UPA-I ministers, Shibu Soren and Dasari Narayana Rao, demanded bribes from candidates being considered to head Coal India, the country’s largest state-run firm. He has also claimed BJP’s Ananth Kumar had threatened civil servants in matters of transfer of an official.

“Crusader or Conspirator: Coalgate and Other Truths” claims the then coal minister Soren (Jharkhand Mukti Morcha) and minister of state Rao (Congress) had demanded a one-time payment of Rs 50 lakh and a monthly consideration of Rs 10 lakh from Shashi Kumar, so he could be appointed to head Coal India in 2004. The ministers’ private secretaries allegedly told Kumar that all past Coal India chiefs had paid such bribes, and there was nothing unusual about it.

Parakh narrates a number of incidents when MPs tried to arm-twist Coal Ministry and related public sector unit officials. He says it is not just ordinary MPs who indulge in “reprehensible behaviour”, and that the inability of state governments to enforce law and order has enabled elected representatives at all levels to meddle in contract management. “Those entrusted with higher responsibilities, such as chairmen of Parliamentary committees also at time show scant respect to senior executives of PSEs, and speak to them in intemperate and insulting language. One such instance was that of Ananth Kumar, (then) Chairman of Standing Committee on Coal and Steel,” writes Parakh.

He quotes from a letter by Ananth Kumar, Standing Committee member from 2005 to 2008, to Coal India Ltd (CIL) Chairman and Managing Director Shashi Kumar in 2005, to buttress his point. Ananth is quoted as saying his party would “see to it that the CIL CMD and MCL CMD realise their mistake and understand the value of political leadership. The CMD would regret the day Saha’s request was not acceded to. In the remaining 10 months (of Kumar), I would teach him a lesson so he would repent.”

The case in question was the transfer and posting of an official, P K Saha, to Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL) from Bharat Coking Coal Ltd. Ananth, according to a letter by Shashi to Parakh, had intervened on behalf of Saha for a posting in Kolkata, but MCL CMD A Sharma had declined.

Parakh goes on to say Ananth was a minister in the past but forgot that civil servants and public sector enterprises executives applying political pressure breached Conduct Rules. “By insisting on retention of Saha at Kolkata, he was abetting his misconduct. He also forgot this was the least that was expected from him. He perhaps thought that as Chairman of the Standing Committee, he had the right to order, bully and threaten the CIL CMD with dire consequences,” he writes.