The Central Bureau of Investigation has registered a case against some officials of the Central Coalfields Limited (CCL), a Kolkata-based private company and its directors for allegedly causing a loss of about ₹83.64 crore to the exchequer.
Among the accused persons are Chief Manager (Mining) Nihar Ranjan Saw, Area Senior Manager (Surveyor) Umesh Kumar Singh and Senior Officer (Surveyor) Pankaj Kumar Jha of the CCL's Magadh Amrapali Area at Chatra in Jharkhand, besides Project Officer Dilip Kumar Sharma and Manager Shambhu Kumar Jha of the Amrapali Project.
AMPL-MIPL-GCL Private Limited (Kolkata) and its directors have also been named in the First Information Report (FIR). The company was incorporated in February 2020.
Manipulated stock records
The legal action has been initiated following a joint surprise check in coordination with the CCL's vigilance department, on a tip-off that there was a huge shortage of coal at the Amrapali Project site in Chatra.
During verification, the team detected an almost 50% shortage of coal stock compared to the quantity mentioned in the records. There was a shortfall of about 8.76 lakh metric tonnes of coal, which amounted to a wrongful loss of about ₹83.64 crore to the CCL.
According to the FIR, the accused public servants conspired with the others to conceal the shortage of coal by preparing “manipulated measurements books”.
The agency found that AMPL-MIPL-GCL had been awarded the Amrapali Project contract for executing the work of coal extraction and dumping of coal at the designated opencast site by deploying men and machinery.
The CBI will also probe the suspected role of others involved in maintaining the coal stock at the project site.
