By IANS,
New Delhi: Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh Saturday said three major public sector undertakings (PSUs) having interests in the state for decades, spend less than three percent of their profits for local development.
Addressing the 55th meeting here of National Development Council – the country’s top policy forum, Singh demanded that the three PSUs should increase their development expenditure in the state up to 20-25 percent in a phased manner.
The three PSUs are: the South Eastern Coalfields Ltd (SECL) which is the highest profit-making subsidiary of the Coal India Ltd, the National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) and the Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL).
“The PSUs spend only small amounts of their profits toward local development, which needs to be corrected urgently,” said Singh, who is heading the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the mineral-rich state.
“The Supreme Court, in one of its landmark judgments known as ‘Samatha Judgment’ has laid down the guiding principle in this regard saying that the companies working in the Scheduled Areas should set a part at least 20 percent of their profits for local infrastructure building and other developmental and welfare activities,” he said.
“The amounts being spent for this purpose presently are even less than 3 percent which need to be immediately raised to 10 percent and finally up to 20-25 percent in stages,” he said.
“The factual position in regard to a malicious propaganda that one of the causes of Left-wing extremism in Chhattisgarh is the mining activities undertaken by private and multinational companies is that over 86 percent coal and over 98 percent iron ore mining in the state is undertaken by the central PSUs,” he said.