A daylong drama over an alleged Rs 10.6 lakh-crore scam in coal allocation took a new twist on Thursday, with Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Vinod Rai coming to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's rescue by playing down the findings of his own office.

A report published in The Times of India on Thursday quoted a CAG draft report on the ‘Performance Audit of Coal Block and Allocations’ as having found “undue benefit” extended to companies by allotting them 155 coal acreages without auction between 2004 and 2009.

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, presenting the 2012 budget on Friday said the growth of the Indian economy, estimated at 6.9 per cent during this fiscal year, was “disappointing”.

“The global crisis has affected us. India’s gross domestic product (GDP) was expected to grow at 6.9 per cent in 2011-12, after having grown at 8.4 per cent in each of the two preceding years,” the finance minister said at the beginning of his seventh budget presentation in the Lok Sabha.

Guwahati, March 2: Cement companies operating from the state have come under the scanner over the alleged unreasonable price hike recently, compelling Dispur to commit in the state Assembly to take all possible steps to check the rise. Senior ruling Congress member Anjan Dutta, supported by party colleague Gautam Bora, raised the issue in the state Assembly during Zero Hour this morning.

Three leading cement companies — Gujarat Ambuja, ACC and Jaypee company — owning mega cement manufacturing plants in Himachal Pradesh on Thursday slashed their prices by half. With this, a 50 kg bag of cement will now cost Rs 25 in the state. The decision, which will come into effect immediately, was taken after state the government put considerable pressure on these companies. While these companies have been selling cement at rates between Rs 320 to 350 per kg, prices in Punjab and Haryana are Rs 280 per kg or less.

New Delhi After a short period of lenience in allowing coal mining in “no-go” forest areas, the environment ministry has decided to impose stringent penalties on violators. In a significant move, the ministry has categorised non-compliance with the environment clearance (EC) conditions as ‘serious’ and ‘not-so-serious’ across 27 sectors and said that violators of the serious ones would be issued closure orders.

Trashing the allegation that environmental considerations are proving to be an impediment in India’s growth, as a recent study has found that the Environment Ministry has cleared an “unprecedented number” of infrastructure projects in the last five years.

New Delhi India Inc may have complained about the slow pace at which green clearances are awarded but the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) on Thursday questioned this claim. It said that on the contrary, the environment ministry gave out an unprecedented number of clearances in the last five years.

The myth that environmental regulations were throttling the country’s growth was busted by the Centre for Science & Environment (CSE) which has found that an unprecedented number of environment and forest clearances have been granted to five key industry sectors during the 11th Five Year Plan.

SHILLONG: The Opposition NCP has strongly criticized the State Government for violating the guidelines which has been laid down by the Centre while implementing the Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) in the State.