Kishan Reddy demands White Paper on SCCL functioning

BJP leader and Secunderabad MP G. Kishan Reddy has accused the State government led by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao of pushing SCCL into deep debt of about ₹25,000 crore.

Union Minister for Tourism, Culture and Development of Northeast Region G. Kishan Reddy has demanded a white paper to be published by the BRS government on the functioning of the SCCL – Singareni Collieries Company Limited, allotment of coal mines, finances and reasons for bidding for Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, on Wednesday.

The BJP leader and Secunderabad MP has accused the State government led by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao of pushing SCCL into deep debt of about ₹25,000 crore. While the turnover had increased to ₹32,840 crore from about ₹12,000 in 2014, profit has been just about ₹1,200 crore now, he claimed.

“KCR’s administration got the profit-making company with a bank balance of ₹3,500 crore to a stage where the company has to take loans to pay salaries to its employees. There is total administration collapse, outsourcing of many works and BRS leaders are getting involved in every sphere of activity,” he charged.

At a press conference in New Delhi, Mr. Reddy said there were dues to the tune of ₹4,000 from firms which had purchased coal, ₹2,600 crore from TSGenco, ₹18,000 crore from TSTransco and overall ₹25,000 crore from the State government alone including interest payment.

From about 62,000 permanent employees in 2014, the number has fallen to 43,000 whereas the contract staff had increased to 30,000 from 14,000 contract staff with tremendous pressure being put on them for higher production, he charged.

The Minister alleged that the company has become a pocket borough for the BRS leaders interfering in every activity and usurping crores of funds in the name of CSR. It has reached such a stage that the SCCL was in danger of collapsing.

Coal India Limited (CIL), which is 10 times bigger than SCCL has taken loans of ₹12,000 crore whereas the latter’s was about ₹10,000 crore, he said and observed that because of the “financial and administration mismanagement”, the government has been trying to shift the blame onto the Centre about supposed privatisation moves when the fact was it has been privatising many activities, he added.