India's '$211 billion' coal row final report backs leak

A report critical of the Indian government's handling of a coal fields sale will not change substantially from a leaked draft that talked of $211 billion in lost revenues, sources said, after the government tried to downplay the findings.
Last week, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) called parts of the draft "exceedingly misleading" and the prime minister's office scrambled to quell the row, which sparked uproar in parliament and stoked fears another major corruption scandal was about to break. But two senior sources at the auditor's office who spoke to Reuters now say the final report will be close in essence to the leaked copy.
"Normally our reports are not works of imagination. There is an elaborate system of verifying facts," a senior official at the CAG, who asked not to be named, told Reuters. "Our reports are always based on facts and the process of verifying them is long and intense," he added. Another source at the auditor's office echoed his comments, but said the final report may speak in terms of windfall gains to companies rather than lost revenues.
The Times of India newspaper published the draft on Thursday, saying coalfields handed out to private and state companies for small fees should have been auctioned for billions of dollars. The report caused a brief adjournment of parliament and sent markets down on fears this could turn into the latest corruption scandal to hit Prime Minister Manmohan Singh government in his second term, derailing economic reforms at a time of slowing growth.
Singh has lurched from crisis to crisis since massive graft in the sale of telecoms spectrum surfaced two years ago, culminating in the quashing of licenses and the jailing of executives and a minister. The telecoms sale may have cost the government up to $36 billion.
India's reputation for graft stretches from construction to defence contracts. The telecoms contract cancellations and jailing of company executives have made investors jittery. On Monday, the head of the army said he had personally been offered a $2.8 million bribe to approve the purchase of 600 faulty vehicles.