9.10.12

Somewhere in Odisha....


The gifting away of land belonging to Coal India Ltd by the Odisha government in 2004 is set to embarrass the Bharatiya Janata Party, now accused of favouring a company promoted by relatives of the late former Delhi chief minister Sahib Singh Verma. The BJP is already under pressure over party president Nitin Gadkari’s alleged lobbying for MP Ajay Sancheti’s firm for an irrigation contract in Maharashtra.
The land in question is a 22-acre expanse in the backward Jharsuguda district of Odisha, given to Global Coal and Mining Pvt Limited (GCMPL) by the state’s Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (IDCO) controlled by the BJP’s industries minister Biswabhusan Harichandan in the BJD-BJP government of the time. Not only was the land, owned by CIL subsidiary Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd, handed over to GCMPL, but a coal washery was also permitted on the land in 2006, in clear contravention of the rules. Despite a show cause notice issued by Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd, GCMPL has refused to vacate, taking the dispute into litigation that began in 2009 and is still continuing.
Activists allege that the deal was a political favour.
The land is part of the Samleshwari Open Cast project of MCL. The PSU acquired the land in village Belpahar, Jharsuguda, under the Coal Bearing Areas (CBA)Act. “The Act clearly stipulates that land acquired under it cannot be transferred or sold. This transfer is illegal,” said Ramesh Tripathi, another local activist who wrote to the CVC in 2010. The matter is now being investigated.
MCL, in 2006, sent a letter to IDCO for cancellation of the lease given to GCMPL, followed by a show cause notice to GCMPL in August 2009.

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