Need further transparency in allotment of natural resources
The wide spread poverty and horrible living conditions in the third world countries is synonymous of the loot or illegal allotment of natural resources is the basis of enrichment of most of the corporate houses and ruling elites across the Globe. Same is the condition in India too. Natural resources namely oil, gas, coal, water and other power generating substances, land, spectrum etc. are grossly misutilized by political class and corporate houses. In India, till 2012, these natural resources were allotted to business houses in an arbitrary way. Country’s corrupt political families and business house made fortunes by the allotment of these natural resources at throw away prices.
The expose of 2G Scam led to the introduction of auction in allotment process in natural resources. The guardian of natural resources is the government and natural resources belong to the coming generations of the country. So the government of the day has to make judicious decisions in allotment of natural resources, considering the coming generations.
By cancelling the entire 2G licenses in February 2012 the apex court bench comprising Justices GS Singhvi and AK Ganguly observed for the auction of all natural resources. The angry UPA Government went for Presidential Reference against this observation. To confuse the Supreme Court, the key Ministers of UPA like Chidambaram and Kapil Sibal who are also lawyers asked many confusing questions in the Presidential Reference. Some questions were like this can water be auctioned, can land allotting for welfare of poor be put for auction, can auctions always need to be kept at rising like in the case of power generation etc.
The Reply given by the Supreme 2012 in connection with the 2G Scam is the basic formula in allotment of natural resources. The auction outcome in coal and spectrum shows how the country started benefiting. The lakhs of crores of rupees landed in state exchequer due to auction. Till mid 2010, the exchequer got pea nuts in the arbitrary allotment of natural resources like spectrum and coal.
Let us check the figures of auction of spectrum. The first auction started in April and ended in June, with daily surging prices which rocked the country. By auctioning 3G and BWA (the so called 4G), the country mopped up Rs 1.06 lakh crore. Those days, the Government expected only Rs 30,000 crore (as per Budget of 2010).
Earlier former Telecom Minister A.Raja, with the consent of former Finance Minister P Chidambaram, allotted spectrum and 122 licences (highest ever allotment) for just around Rs 9,200 crore. The3G/BWA auction, by gathering Rs 1.06 lakh crore, exposed the UPA Government, leading to anti corruption movements in the country exposing the 2G scam in the public domain. The Comptroller and Auditor- General’s (CAG) Rs 1.76 lakh crore loss figure on Raja’s allotments were based on the 3G prices.
The anti-corruption movements led to a surge in popularity of the BJP, which was in a sleepy mode till mid- 2010. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was born and it tasted power with lightning speed. The ruling Congress was washed out in most elections since 2011. Public interest litigations filed by Subramanian Swamy and Prashant Bhushan led to the cancellation of licences allotted through the 2G scam and the Congress government went against the apex court order and lost in the Presidential Reference to the Supreme Court.
But the second auction directed by the Supreme Court in November 2012, was sabotaged by the Congress government and certain corporates. In a single day, the auction ended with just the issue of 19 licences. All Cabinet Ministers landed at a Press conference to blame the CAG and the courts. It was strange to see Ministers feeling happy about loss of revenue. But all hushed up the fact that, even in sabotaged auction, the country received Rs 9,400 crore from just 19 licences, that too in small circles, while Raja had given away 122 licences for Rs 9,200 crore. All the telecom companies were in connivance with Congress government to pull down the prices of the mandated auction in 2014.
Then came the March 2014 mandated auction. More than Rs 68,000 crore came to the public exchequer. The 2G auction rates crossed the 3G figures. In the March 2015 auction, the NDA Government gathered Rs 1.09 lakh crore. And in October 2016 auction, Rs.65, 789 crores landed in treasury. In this auction also telecom cartels tried to pull down the competition to limit the bench mark prices in forthcoming auction in 2018. In total, by auctioning spectrum, the exchequer got more than Rs 3.61 lakh crore from 2010-2016. Similar are the bonanza to exchequer from the Coal Auction in the long run after Supreme Court cancelled many illegal allotments.
The CAG unearthed from 1990 to 2010, the country lost more than Rs.10 lakh crore from the arbitrary coal mines allocation. The apex auditor has only calculated the loss from the value of coal. The coal mining frauds are related to the generation of power and most of the power companies were engaged in pricing frauds also in connivance with the people in power. Frauds in power pricing means, ultimately common man lost many lakhs of crores of rupees over the years.
The Capital City Delhi is the main victim of power pricing frauds and we have seen that protests strikes against the power pricing frauds were the basic reason for the acceptability of AAP led by Arvind Kejriwal. Till the end of 2013, every persons living in Delhi will vouch of the exorbitant billing in electricity, especially in the areas, where power was supplied by Anil Ambani’s Reliance. One advantage of the AAP coming to power was the rectification of electricity bills in Delhi. Anyway no action was taken against the errant power companies when Kejriwal became Chief Minister. This is how the system works in India.
Let us check all the beneficiaries of old illegal and arbitrary auction of spectrum and coal. Answer is simple. All the major corporate houses of this country are the beneficiaries of these grand loots of natural resources. Tata, both Reliance groups, different Birla groups, Essar, Jindals, Lanco, besides several new unknown entities from south India propped up by Congress apex leadership were the major beneficiaries of the arbitrary allotment of natural resources from Independence to mid 2010. Obviously the powerful people from politics must have got their pound of flesh on this loot of natural resources.
We have seen the KG Basin oil rigging illegalities by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance. How the governments dilly dallied in taking action on the violations in oil rigging and output declaration which ultimately affect the oil pricing. The natural resource oil is given for the whims and fancies of private companies and it ultimately resulted in power production and tariff hikes to the common man. One good thing Narendra Modi government did was the controlling of the purchase prices of oil from KG Basin. But here also no initiation of the criminal cases for gambling and misuse of natural resources by private operators and suffering public sector undertakings.
The Nira Radia tapes exposes how Tata and both Reliance groups involved in the lobbying of natural resources like coal, spectrum, and oil and power generation from natural resources. How Chief Ministers of the states were bribed for getting mining licenses and how media, supposed to be watch dogs were bribed to keep silence. Majority of the business houses always made fortunes though looting or smuggling of natural resources. These frauds only happen with the help of people in power and corrupt bureaucracy.
Now, by the Reply to Presidential Reference in 2012, the Supreme Court’s Constitution Bench comprising then Chief Justice SH Kapadia, Justices DK Jain, JS Khehar, Dipak Misra and Ranjan Gogoi has set out guidelines for allotment of natural resources. What we need are now the people with integrity in power and bureaucracy to adhere to the spirit of the guidelines specified by the apex court of India. We need more transparent laws, digitalised auction in all sectors and Regulatory bodies with people having integrity to handle the allotment of natural resources. Strong Regulatory Bodies are needed to check the possible cartelisation in the auction. In Spectrum auction, we have many instances of cartelisation of operators. These things are very important because natural resources belong not only to us, but also to coming generations. So we have to utilize them properly for the benefit of the country and its coming generations also.
By J Gopikrishnan Senior Journalist with The Pioneer
OpinionExpress.In
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