The unprecedented second wave of Covid-19 has shaken the very foundation of the healthcare systems in India. The grim reality of Oxygen shortage has led to many philanthropic gestures by the industry, which has come forward to support the government. Some corporates have followed the age of maxim, “Silence speaks louder than words”, while a few have even taken this opportunity to gain publicity and build a foundation for further negotiations with the government on policy changes, relaxations amongst others. The likes of Tata’s,Ambani’s , Adani’s are the big corporates who are silently contributing to the worst pandemic of the century possibly on a purely philanthropic basis. The general public is not being projected by media of these philanthropic gestures apart from a few like the famous Jindal Brothers who contribute a penny but push for gaining mileage by undue projections.
The Steel industry in general has been occupying centerstage of the oxygen crisis and making it appear that the entire shortage is being met by the few players. The campaign by JSPL and the bold statements of Naveen Jindal ,the social media push, the TV interviews, the publications are all stage managed. There is very little contribution to the overall oxygen pool by this politician cum industrialist. JSW led by his brother Sajjan Jindal is pushing policy changes like never before at this time . Steel prices are skyrocketing on the fallacious pretext of increase in iron ore prices which is a game being played by the steel players themselves. One has never asked on investigated the turnaround of JSPL in 1.5 years from a time when there were nearly insolvent. The money flow to Naveen led JSPL has not been investigated nor is his silent move to have the Oman Steel plant removed from JSPL and purchased by his own Mauritian company, Templar. Now even JPL is being hived off to become Naveen Jindal’s personal company.
Almost all Steel players have iron ore mines purchased through auctions then what may be the reason for increase in the domestic prices. Sajjan Jindal who leads JSW did not produce as required under the Mineral Development and Production plan (MDPA) to create scarcity. This could have led very well to collection for royalty and premium on the shortfall of production, but he deftly managed the Odisha government to delay the same till be pushes Mine’s ministry to change the Act and Rules, which has been slowly happening e.g. MMDR 2021 (amendment) and followed by amendment in Rules. Due to demand supply shortage the iron ore prices shot up and the steel industry citing the price hike in iron ore kept on increasing the steel prices. So, overall, in net results the steel industry coffers have been filling up fast even when the coking coal, coal and other raw material prices are bottoming. Considering that much of the steel goes in Infrastructure development, the price rise burden is met by the government by utilizing public money.
The Mines Ministry has actually killed the vibrant merchant miners to benefit the steel players not realizing that the is the same industry captains don two caps the competitive manipulations will only harm the national exchequer, while making these private goons richer and richer at the behest of public money. Many believe that changes in MMDR Act done through well coordinated effort of Sajjan Jindal and his brothers to suit their requirement first.It’s not that international players in Steel do not want to enter India, its our own Steel magnates who do not allow them to be successful in India e.g POSCO when they wanted to enter India. Today most of the mines which went under auction have been won by JSW and premiums which are unsustainable for any balance sheet. Thus, followed a spate of reforms to dole them out of crisis by the obliging Mining ministry. Other players also managed to push in reforms which suited them e.g Tata which got rights to sell 50% of the ore from captive mines (sic). The mines obtained other than through auctions can now be freely transferred, without any premium to the government. Earlier these could have been transferred only when the government approved and without making any profit. The premium/profit if any was rightfully for the State government. JSW pushed another reform of taking over the mine of a captive plant when taking over the plant without any further premiums of benefit to the government.
This leads to the moot question: Is philanthropy in India by the Indian captains really a good will gesture by these smartians, or a cover up exercise for the public eye? Baffling, but it’s true that we as Indians are being fooled to believe that these are our saviours, without realizing that all assets are National assets, and the Government otherwise also has powers to use these resources for National advantage. I do not wish to discredit the few who are really concerned for the nationals and are silently helping the government without any motive for personal advantage. These industry captains which include leaders like Azeem Premji, Ratan Tata, Anand Mahindra, Murthy are few deserved national and international recognition in the top league. Then there are countless mid-tier and SME’s who are relentlessly and selflessly working for tiding over thenational crisis. Not the mention the countless individuals and self-help groups who have taken the mantle to help the common masses who continue gasping for air!!