Iron ore transport scam: CBI raids 14 places in state

-

Rourkela: CBI sleuths on Thursday simultaneously raided the houses of a Railway official and a mine broker in connection with alleged irregularities in the transport of iron ore.

The raids were conducted at the residence of Railway goods supervisor Bibhudutta Sethi (D-165) in Sector-7 in the Steel Township and mining broker Nandalal Aggarwal (K-15) in Civil Township area.

CBI sources said the raids in the Steel City, conducted by a team from Kolkata with help from the local CBI unit, were part of the nationwide raids on businessmen and railway officials in connection with the alleged scam in ore transport. A total of 14 locations in the state were raided simultaneously by specially formed teams.

CBI officers are believed to have seized incriminating documents during today’s raids. But they were tight-lipped about the seizure.

Apart from Rourkela, raids were also conducted in Rajgangpur near here and Barbil in neighbouring Keonjhar district. Simultaneously, other CBI teams raided several railway sidings, including in Jurudi and Banspani, from where iron ore is loaded for transport. A total of 10 locations were raided in Keonjhar district.

Sources said the size of the scam, perpetrated by unscrupulous businessmen with help from some railway officials, was over Rs. 700 crore.

Last year, a multi-disciplinary investigation had detected a massive fraud in ore transportation by some mining companies, who defrauded Railways by passing off ore actually meant for exports as ore meant for domestic consumption.

Freight charges for export-bound iron ore, it may be noted, are more than five times that fixed for ore meant for domestic consumption.

State BJP president Jual Oram had written to the Railway Minister last year drawing the latter’s attention to the organised racket in defrauding the Railway of its rightful revenue by resorting to this subterfuge in cohorts with Railway officials.

Railway authorities had imposed a fine of Rs. 66 crore on a Kolkata based mining company, which was found during inquiry to have siphoned off huge quantities of iron ore from the mines in Keonjhar district and later exporting them.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Automated Blood Cell Separator at IGH, Rourkela

-
Image
Rourkela: A sophisticated Automated Blood Cell Separator was installed at the RSP-run Ispat General Hospital (IGH) here yesterday. The state-of-the-art Blood Cell Separator is a Mobile Collection System and operates on the highly updated apheresis technology. It is a highly mobile, compact and lightweight total apheresis system and technically advanced. Once the operator initiates the MCS+ procedure, this sophisticated separator automatically removes whole blood from a donor, separates the blood into components (red blood cells, white blood cells, plasma, and platelets), retains one or more of the components, and returns the reminder of the blood to the donor. It takes comparatively less time (60 to 65 minutes) for the programme to run. The components obtained are transfused or used to prepare blood products for administration. It is both user and donor friendly and helpful to the patients where there is absolute indication of platelet transfusion. Inaugurating the
Read more

TechnoPrep launches offline NEET classes in Rourkela

-
Image
Rourkela: TechnoPrep, a premier entrance coaching website in the country, announced launching of its offline classes exclusively for NEET (Medical) coaching in Rourkela. Briefing media persons here at Rourkela Club, Brahmanshu Mishra, Chairman, TechnoPrep, said “We received repeated requests from students and their parents from Rourkela to provide quality coaching for medical entrance. We decided to open the offline centre here to offer focused coaching to students.” In less than one year, TechnoPrep has been successfully helping students realize their dreams of notching up high rank in the all India entrance exams, claimed Mishra. He also said TechnoPrep is planning to launch NEET Crash Courses from March, 2013, at Rourkela, followed by full-fledged coaching for students of XI, XII and plus two classes. The coaching will cover a rigorous offline curriculum and the tests will be conducted both in online and offline formats. “Now that the government is movin
Read more

Green Energy Corporation in State soon: Minister

-
Rourkela: The Odisha Government is soon going to establish a Green Energy Corporation to promote renewable sources of energy, said State Energy and I & PR Minister Arun Kumar Sahoo while inaugurating an international conference on Solar Energy Photovoltaic at KIIT University at Bhubaneswar today. Speaking at the conference organised by the School of Electronics Engineering of KIIT University, the Minister said that renewable energy sources like solar energy have great importance as those are not finite like natural fuels such as coal and petroleum. But the generation of solar energy is expensive and scientists and researchers should try hard to make it affordable. KIIT University Vice-Chancellor P P Mathur said that country like India needs energy security which only solar energy can provide. One of the keynote speakers at the conference, A K Beura of Bengal Engineering and Science University, Howrah said there is a need to speed up the development of appropriate techno
Read more