Jharkhand Assembly elections: Polling for 13 seats in first phase underway

The first of the five-phase polling began in 13 assembly constituencies in Jharkhandon Saturday.
The voting commenced at 7 a.m. and will end at 3 p.m., Election Commission officials said.

A total of 37,83,055 electorate, including 18,01,356 women and five third-gender voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in the first phase across six districts.
The fate of 189 candidates, including 15 women nominees, will be decided in the first phase of the polling in Chatra, Gumla, Bishunpur, Lohardaga, Manika, Latehar, Panki, Daltonganj, Bishrampur, Chhatarpur, Hussainabad, Garhwa and Bhawanathpur.
Key candidates in the fray are Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) nominee and state Health Minister Ramchandra Chandravanshi from Bishrampur and state Congress president Rameshwar Oraon from Lohardaga seat.
Oraon is taking on the former state Congress chief Sukhdeo Bhagat after the latter joined the BJP recently.
Former BJP chief whip Radhakrishna Kishore, who was denied ticket from Chhatarpur, is contesting on an All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) party ticket from the same seat.
The BJP, which is seeking a second straight win under the leadership of Chief Minister Raghubar Das, is contesting in 12 seats in the first phase while it is supporting Independent candidate Vinod Singh from Hussainabad.
The AJSU party is contesting on its own.
Challenging the BJP is the opposition alliance of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), the Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Dal.
While the Congress is contesting in six seats in the first phase, the JMM is fighting in four and the RJD in three constituencies in the first phase.
The other parties contesting the elections are Babulal Marandi's Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik), Janata Dal (United) and the Left parties.
Jharkhand Chief Electoral Officer Vinay Kumar Choubey said a total of 4,892 polling stations have been set up, out of which 1,262 would have webcasting facilities.' Additional Director General of Police and state police Nodal Officer Murari Lal Meena said a total of 1,097 polling stations in Naxal-affected areas were marked as hypersensitive and 461 polling stations as sensitive.
The rest of the four phases for the 81-member assembly will be held on December 7, 12, 16 and 20.
Counting is scheduled on December 23.

A Jharkhand power plant could herald a $38 bn headache for India's banks

Deep in the jungles of eastern India lies an abandoned power plant, a warning symbol for the $38 billion of additional bad loans which are about to engulf the country’s banks.
Like many of India’s power stations, the Jharkhand project had all the markings of success when a group led by State Bank of India lent about $700 million five years ago to build it. There’s abundant coal and water in the area, a rail track was set to run through the premises, and its promise of 1,080 megawatts of electricity was alluring in a country that faces persistent power shortages and blackouts.

Yet today it stands deserted and Indian banks have had to write off three-quarters of their loans, after selling the operating company to a specialist in distressed debt. Haircuts of that magnitude are now expected across the whole power sector in India, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch, suggesting local banks face a new $38 billion wave of losses. That would be more than four times the $9 billion they’ve written off from a previous tide of bad loans from India’s troubled steel sector.
“It is the largest bad-loan risk in the country,” said Vinayak Bahuguna, chief executive officer of Asset Reconstruction Co. of India Ltd., the firm which bought the Jharkhand plant from its creditors in 2015, about two years after construction stopped. “Just as the banks are beginning to put the stress on steel accounts behind them the power accounts are emerging as the new pain point.”
India’s banks, which have some of the highest stressed asset ratios globally, are under mounting pressure from regulators to clean up their books as the government attempts to revive loan growth and boost the economy. That is likely to intensify the reckoning they face from lending to India’s power sector, which is plagued by fuel shortages and difficulties negotiating long term supply contracts with the country’s debt-laden electricity distributors.
The problem is especially acute for state-owned banks, which are already reeling under the weight of their problem debts. Out of 21 government-controlled lenders, accounting for more than two-thirds of the total loans in India, 19 reported losses in the three months to March 31.
Going Bad
After taking haircuts of between 40-60 per cent on their loans to troubled steel projects, the banks face a 75 per cent loss ratio on their power lending, according to the Bank of America Merrill Lynch estimate.
Many banks are unwilling to accept losses of that magnitude, leading to a tussle between lenders and potential buyers over valuations. Such disputes have delayed a solution for power projects such as those owned by Lanco Infratech Ltd. and Jaiprakash Power Ventures, which together account for some of the biggest stressed loan accounts in India.
“Sales will happen if banks take a more realistic approach on valuations they seek and are willing to take decisive action,” said Hemant Kanoria, chairman of India Power Corp., whose bid for the Jharkhand power plant was rejected by bankers citing different views on the valuation.
For some projects, banks are proposing to wait out the problems in the hopes that the situation will improve. At a meeting in Mumbai last month, lenders including State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda and Punjab National Bank suggested the creation of a new company to take over management of about 10 power projects, until demand for the assets picks up.
But recovery hinges more on addressing the fundamental issues that plague the Indian power sector, notably the difficult condition of many of the state-owned distribution firms.
“Ultimately the question is whether the distributors will start buying power and paying,” said PK Gupta, managing director at State Bank of India, the nation’s largest lender, which has a so-called watch list of about $1.6 billion of problematic power sector loans.
A recent proposal by the Reserve Bank of India to tighten up further on when lenders have to recognize loan losses elicited protests from Indian power companies, which feared it would force many more into insolvency. The Association of Power Producers wrote to RBI Governor Urjit Patel earlier this year to say the tougher rules would propel projects generating 75 gigawatts of electricity, about a fifth of India’s installed capacity, into bankruptcy.
Back at the Jharkhand site, there’s little hope that the project will start providing power soon. On a visit last month, the only sign of life was a group of about a dozen private security guards protecting the rusting structure from thieves.

Coal scam case: Ex-Jharkhand CM Madhu Koda gets 3 yrs jail, Rs 25-lakh fine

Former Jharkhand chief minister Madhu Koda and ex-coal secretary H C Gupta were today sentenced to three years imprisonment by a special court here in a case of coal block allocation scam.
Besides the jail term, the special court also imposed a fine of Rs 25 lakh on Koda and Rs one lakh on Gupta.
Former Jharkhand chief secretary A K Basu and Vijay Joshi, a close aide of the then chief minister, were also awarded jail term of three years for indulging in corrupt practices and hatching criminal conspiracy in allocation of Rajhara North coal block in Jharkhand to a Kolkata-based private company, Vini Iron and Steel Udyog Ltd (VISUL).
Special judge Bharat Parashar convicted the private firm and imposed a fine of Rs 50 lakh on it.
The convicts including Koda, however, were granted statutory bail for a period of two months to enable them to file appeals in the Delhi High Court challenging the conviction and the jail term.
The convicts were tried for offences under sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy) read with 420 (cheating) and 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servants) of the IPC and under provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act.
The CBI had said that the firm had applied for allocation of Rajhara North coal block on January 8, 2007.
It had said although the Jharkhand government and steel ministry did not recommend VISUL's case for coal block allocation, the 36th Screening Committee recommended the block to the accused firm.
The CBI had said that Gupta, who was chairman of the screening committee, had concealed facts from the then prime minister Manmohan Singh, who at that time headed the Coal Ministry too, that Jharkhand had not recommended VISUL for allocation of a coal block.
Following is the chronology of events in a coal scam case unearthed during the erstwhile UPA regime in which a special court today awarded three years jail term to ex-Jharkhand chief minister Madhu Koda and former coal secretary H C Gupta:
*Dec 2014: CBI files charge sheet against Koda, others before a special court here.
*Jan 21, 2015: Court summons Koda, others as accused.
*Feb 18: Court grants bail to accused after they appear before it and seek relief.
*July 14, 2015: Court orders framing of charges against Koda, others.
*July 31, 2015: Court frames charges against accused.
*July 11, 2017: Court concludes hearing in coal case.
*Dec 5, 2017: Court reserves order.
*Dec 13, 2017: Special court holds Koda, Gupta and others guilty of corruption, criminal conspiracy and other offences.
*Dec 16, 2017: Special court awards three years jail term to Koda, Gupta and two others in the case.
*It also imposes fine of Rs 25 lakh, Rs 50 lakh and Rs one lakh on Koda, a Kolkata-based firm and Gupta respectively.
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