Headlines
Government's Rs.2 lakh crore coal mine auction claim 'misleading': Shourie
New Delhi, May 1
Former union minister in the
NDA government Arun Shourie has termed the Narendra Modi government's
economic policy as "directionless" and also described the prime
minister's claim of the government having bagged Rs.2 lakh crore through
the coal mine auction as "misleading".
In an interview to
Headlines Today news channel, Shourie, who is a member of the Bharatiya
Janata Party and a veteran journalist, said the government has made only
Rs.6,200 crore "receipt" from the auction of the 20 coal mines and not
Rs.2 lakh crore.
"The Rs.2 lakh crore would come when companies
that have won the auction produce the coal at the rated capacity for 30
years -- but (the way it is claimed) it seems as I've got it just now,"
Shourie said.
Modi has claimed his government has made by Rs.2
lakh crore by re-auctioning just 20 mines of the 204 coal mines that
were auctioned.
Asked by the host Karan Thapar if the government
was "misleading" the people with the claim, Shourie agreed and added
that the government was "managing headlines".
"They are managing
headlines, unfortunately there is too much focus on managing headlines
in regard to the economy and it is going to rebound," he said.
He
criticised the economic policy and said there was "not enough reaching
out to experts who know about the subject" and that there was "too much
confrontation with people, like the Supreme Court, the Reserve Bank of
India", which was leading to uncertainty.
He also criticised the
government's tax handling, which he said has "intimidated" corporates
and said not enough attention paid to reform.
"The big picture is missing and the big pieces are missing," he said.