After the elections, now Hemant is angry with the Center on the dues, the burden of beneficial schemes is becoming heavy.
After conquering the fort on the vote front in the state, Hemant Soren government’s conflict with the Center on the currency front has started. The state government has claimed payment of outstanding coal royalty amounting to Rs 1.36 lakh crore owed to the Center and to central undertakings. In December, on a question related to this by Bihar MP Pappu Yadav, Union Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Choudhary, in his written reply, added fuel to the fire of political conflict by denying the dues with the Centre. Frustrated by the election defeat, the opposition BJP in the state also started joining the Centre’s tune. Hemant Soren’s party Jharkhand Mukti Morcha even threatened to stop the supply of minerals in the country.
Schemes like Mainiya Samman Yojana to more than sixty lakh women, free electricity up to 200 units, loan waiver of farmers up to Rs 2 lakh, three-room permanent house to 25 lakh people from the state scheme have brought about Rs 30-40 thousand crores to the state treasury. The annual burden of Rs. Some of these decisions were taken during the assembly elections. The importance of the dues can be understood from the fact that it is a much larger amount than the annual budget of the state. In the first cabinet meeting itself, the Chief Minister decided to form a committee for the legal fight to recover the dues from the Centre.
When the Center denied the dues of Jharkhand in the Parliament, BJP State President Babulal Marandi raised the issue of giving full account of the dues by posting on social media and asked for concrete proof with complete documents and facts. On this, Hemant Soren said, “The demand of us Jharkhandis is not a mere one. We will definitely take our rights. It is very important to get this outstanding amount for the development of the state.
BJP leader Babulal Marandi
Soren has already written several letters to the Central Government and the Prime Minister. Even during the assembly elections, huge hoardings of “Kab Doge” were put up at intersections. On September 24, just before the assembly elections, Soren had written a letter to the Prime Minister demanding payment of the dues. In the letter he had said that despite the provisions in the law and judicial pronouncements, the coal companies are not making the payment. He has raised these questions at various forums including the Prime Minister’s Office, Finance Ministry and NITI Aayog but the payment has not been made. He had claimed dues of Rs 1 lakh 36 thousand 42 crore with the coal companies till March 2022. In a letter to the Prime Minister, Hemant Soren had said that coal companies have acquired more than 32 thousand acres of GM land and 6600 acres of GM JJ Lad in Jharkhand, but the dues of minerals have not been paid under the land acquisition compensation. The outstanding amount as royalty on washed coal is Rs 2900 crore. In the Common Cause Writ of 2014, a claim of Rs 32 thousand crore has been made with the coal companies citing the order of the Supreme Court.
In 2019, the Corona crisis came as soon as Hemant Soren took charge of Jharkhand. At the same time, several hundred crore rupees of electricity bill outstanding due to DVC (Damodar Valley Corporation) were directly deducted from the state treasury by the Central Government. Even during that time, Hemant Soren had written a letter to the Union Coal Minister and the Prime Minister saying that the state still needs money and the coal companies that run the power companies owe billions of rupees to the state in the form of royalty etc. The amount should have been adjusted from that. The then Union Coal Minister Piyush Goyal had said that the dues of the state would be paid soon.
The State Revenue and Land Reforms Department has also written a letter asking Coal India to clarify the situation. Former Chief Secretary of Jharkhand, Sukhdev Singh, had also found in the investigation of land acquisition compensation under the Coal Bearing Act that Jharkhand did not receive the compensation amount. Some cases are pending in the court.
