[Coalgate,
as the scandal is now known here, is centered on the opaque government
allotment process that enabled well-connected businessmen and politicians to
obtain rights to undeveloped coal fields. Investigators are now looking at
whether Mr. Jayaswal and Vijay Darda, a member of Parliament, conspired to
fraudulently obtain five lucrative coal allocations. Naveen Jindal, another
lawmaker and one of India ’s richest industrialists, is also reportedly under
investigation.]
By Vikas
Bajaj And Jim
Yardley
 |
Kuni Takahashi/Bloomberg News
At a coal market in
by politicians and bureaucrats.
|
But now Mr. Jayaswal is embroiled in a $34 billion coal mining
scandal that has exposed the ugly underside of Indian politics and economic
life: a brazen style of crony capitalism that has enabled politicians and their
friends to reap huge profits by gaining control of vast swaths of the country’s
natural resources, often for nothing.
“Today in India , politicians are so powerful,” said Santosh Hegde, a
former Supreme Court justice who recently led a sweeping investigation of a
different mining scandal in southern India . “All together, they are looting the country.”
Coalgate, as the scandal is now known here, is centered on
the opaque government allotment process that enabled well-connected businessmen
and politicians to obtain rights to undeveloped coal fields. Investigators are
now looking at whether Mr. Jayaswal and Vijay Darda, a member of Parliament,
conspired to fraudulently obtain five lucrative coal allocations. Naveen
Jindal, another lawmaker and one of India ’s richest industrialists, is also reportedly under
investigation.
Even as the scandal has renewed public anger about rising
official graft and the state of the economy, Coalgate has provided fresh
ammunition for those who say India ’s politicians have become so venal and feckless that they
are no longer able or willing to address the country’s entrenched problems. The
opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, which was already on the defensive because
it had been implicated in Mr. Hegde’s investigation, has been so eager to score
political points with the latest scandal that it shut down Parliament for weeks
with floor protests. It refused to allow any debate — even of Coalgate — or any
voting unless the prime minister resigned over the scandal. Almost an entire
session was lost.
This sort of political dysfunction is hardly new in India and, in recent years, the economy was booming even as the
politicians dithered. But now that the economy is slowing sharply, particularly
in the ailing energy sector, analysts say India can no longer afford a government that so flagrantly fails
to deliver what it promises.
On Friday, the government approved long-pending proposals
allowing foreign retailers, airlines, broadcasters and other companies to enter
the Indian market in an effort to shore up the faltering economy.
A decade ago, India’s leaders announced an idealistic
slogan — Power for All in 2012 — and pledged to bring electricity to every
corner of the country, partly by expanding coal-fired power plants. India still has more than 300 million people living without
electricity, and this summer, it suffered the biggest power blackout in
history. The scandal in the coal industry, meanwhile, has made it even harder
for the country to generate enough electricity to meet its needs.
“Not being able to produce enough power has absolutely been
the single biggest bottleneck for economic growth,” said Praveen Chakravarty,
chief executive of Mumbai-based Anand Rathi Financial Services.
Unlike other sectors of the economy, natural resources like
coal remain tightly controlled by politicians and bureaucrats.
A recent study of contributions to India ’s political parties offered a telling insight into the
nexus between politics and money. Companies in technology and other service
businesses — industries that require few government licenses or permissions —
contributed almost nothing. The biggest donors were involved in mining, power
and other sectors dependent on the government to obtain rights to natural
resources.
But by 2004, Coal India was not producing coal fast enough to provide power needed
to keep up with the country’s rapid growth or to achieve the national goal of
universal electrification. The newly elected coalition national government, led
by the Indian National Congress Party, vowed to open up the power sector, which
prompted a rush of applicants for captive coal fields.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, however, did not introduce
competitive bidding, leading to a murky allocation process. A government screening
committee chose the recipients; several former and current bureaucrats and
industry officials say its decisions were highly subjective, often favoring
applicants with close ties to state and national political bosses. India ’s comptroller and auditor general, after examining the
committee’s minutes and other documents, issued a scathing report last month.
One former senior official, Surya P. Sethi, who
unsuccessfully lobbied Mr. Singh for a more transparent selection process, said
a representative of the global mining giant BHP Billiton complained to him that the system was
stacked in favor of certain Indian businesses.
“They took the recommendations that suited them,” Mr.
Sethi, who now teaches at the National University of Singapore, said about the
government. “And they overlooked the recommendations that did not suit them.”
Investigators now say that some of the favored applicants,
having acquired the coal fields free, quickly sold them for tens of millions of
dollars to steel or power companies. Others simply kept them as an asset and
have not yet developed them, even as the country faces blackouts and coal
shortages.
“Politicians realized that this kind of coal was black
gold,” said E.A.S. Sarma, a former power secretary.
On Thursday, in an effort to regain some of its lost
credibility, a government panel reviewing coal concessions announced that it
was reclaiming four coal fields from companies that had not made sufficient
progress in mining.
Mr. Jayaswal, the businessman, is based in the city of Nagpur , where he has developed a close relationship with the
local lawmaker, Mr. Darda. In a statement released by his company, Mr. Jayaswal
denied any wrongdoing and predicted his company would be exonerated. “The
investigation is on, and the company is fully cooperating,” the statement said.
“The truth will ultimately prevail.”
One Nagpur businessman, a longtime acquaintance of Mr. Jayaswal’s,
said many people were puzzled at how quickly he had amassed his fortune,
despite having set up only one small power plant, even as his other projects
remained in planning stages or were just breaking ground.
Mr. Jayaswal is building a large house in Nagpur and hosted his two children’s weddings in Phuket, an
island in the south of Thailand . For his daughter’s wedding, Mr. Jayaswal flew in 350
friends, business associates and politicians for an event that was featured on
the popular Indian television program “My Big Fat Indian Wedding.”
“He flaunts his wealth, and he lives a rich life,” said the
businessman, who asked not to be identified to protect his relationship with
Mr. Jayaswal. “He is, in the last five or six years, suddenly into very big
money.”
During that period, Mr. Jayaswal was regularly in the
company of Mr. Darda, who became a business partner, and other politicians. He
has been linked to the powerful opposition leader, L. K. Advani, and one
photograph shows him presenting flowers to Sonia Gandhi, president of the
Congress Party. Last year, Mr. Jayaswal appeared at India ’s presidential palace for the release of a new
coffee-table book, “The Global Indian,” which praised his company.
Another businessman, who also has been allotted coal
fields, said relationships with politicians served as a “master key” enabling
industrialists to gain access to natural resources. He argued that Mr. Jayaswal
had merely played by the government’s rules and that banks would lend only to
companies with guaranteed access to raw materials.
“If you were in his position, you would do the same thing,”
the businessman said, asking not to be identified because his company also
received coal fields and did not want to draw attention to himself. “In this
country, it’s difficult to survive. Whoever has a master key wants to eat up
all of India . Whoever doesn’t have a key is struggling to survive.”
Sruthi Gottipati and Hari Kumar contributed
reporting.
