Published On : Mon, Jul 30th, 2018

Nagpur : WCL trying to cover up coal theft scam at Ukni mines

Advertisement

Nagpur : Last week Nagpur Today had published a story on its portal exposing large-scale coal theft from Ukni mines in North Wani area of the Western Coalfields Limited (WCL). The story had also expressed apprehensions that the WCL administration would try its level best to cover up the issue to protect the Chief Managing Director (CMD). It seems that the apprehension are proving to be true.

After the Nagpur Today story sent shock waves within the WCL administration, its vigilance department constituted a team of incompetent officers and asked them to visit the Ukni mines on Saturday. Though the vigilance department has four-five dynamic officers, whose investigations had exposed many corrupt officers in the past, but they were not included in the team raising doubts over the intentions.

The investigating team, which was told in Nagpur itself to cover the issue to protect the CMD, reached Ukni mines on Saturday noon. The team also had a local officer, who earlier used to work in the technical department of WCL. The team spent 4-5 hours at the mines and then at the rest house and returned to Nagpur by the evening.

Meanwhile, when the complainant, INTUC leader Abid Hussain contacted the team, he was not provided any information and was asked to contact the Nagpur office.

It was learnt that the investigating team would cite some technical issue to cover up the coal theft case. This is being done to protect the interests of CGM of North Wani, Mines Manager, PTC Transport and buyer Reliance Power.

The financial condition of WCL is reportedly very poor as school bus operators have not been paid their rents since last two months. In the Nagpur area, the controversial Balaji Group had allegedly manipulated documents and submitted the tender in two different names.