Coal block auction: Stir to be intensified if Centre goes ahead

Balka Suman demanded that Centre stop the auctioning of coal blocks and hand over the blocks to the Singareni Collieries Company Limited

Mancherial: Government Whip Balka Suman demanded that Centre stop the auctioning of coal blocks and hand over the blocks to the Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL).

Speaking at a day-long protest staged against the Centre’s move to privatize coal blocks in Naspur mandal centre on Saturday, Suman said the move to auction the Satthupalli, Shravanapalli and Penugadapalli coal blocks should be stopped.

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Asking why the coal blocks were not being allocated to the profit-making SCCL if the Centre was not mulling to privatize it, he said BJP leaders would not be allowed to move in coal belt areas if the mines were handed over to the Adani Group.

The privatisation of SCCL was not threat to just six districts, but an issue that affected the entire State. ‘It is a part of a conspiracy to wreck economic progress of the new State. It is aimed at hitting thermal power production and then to deprive lift irrigation projects here of electricity,” he said, adding that the protest would be intensified if the Centre did not stop the auction.

Forest minister Allola Indrakaran Reddy, MLAs N Diwakar Rao, and D Chinnaiah, Zilla Parishad Chairpersons N Bhagyalaxmi, and Kova Laxmi and others were present.