Crusader or Conspirator ? Coalgate and Other Truths
Author: PC Parakh
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In 2012, a controversy over allocation of coal blocks to private companies rocked the country. The government s finance watchdog the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) found the government had picked favourites and avoided open and competitive bidding which would have generated far more revenue for a cash-starved state. The CAG concluded that India had lost ` 1.86 lakh crore (over $ 30 billion) in the process, all of which went to the private companies. It was the biggest recorded scam in the history of India. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), India s premier investigation agency, then filed an FIR against the top officer in the coal ministry Secretary PC Parakh and industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla. Parakh had by then earned a fine reputation for ability and integrity in over three decades as a civil servant. His stint as the top bureaucrat in the coal ministry was his last posting in a sterling career. The FIR outraged the civil services and corporate India and was widely condemned by the intelligentsia of the country. The book isn t just about the coal scam. It is also about working with some of the biggest Indian politicians, starting with chief ministers of And...
