BANGALORE: The Adani Enterprises, one of the port service providers in the state-owned Belikeri port, is likely to face criminal charges of bribing officials and local politicians in abetting illegal export of iron ore from the state of Karnataka. The Karnataka Lokayukta, in its report on illegal mining submitted to the state government on July 27, has stated that about 77,38,169 metric tonne of iron ore was shipped out illegally from the Belikeri Port between the year 2006 and 2010.The Lokayukta, in its final report, has also recommended the state government to take measures to cancel the lease granted to provide port services to private companies at the Belikeri port and shut it down until it was equipped with proper security arrangement on standards prescribed by the Union government.The Lokayukta also recommended to blacklist the company and ban it from participating in any future contract, grant or lease by the government.The company has paid bribes to various officials of both the state and the Central governments in getting undue favour for illegal exports, the Lokayukta’s report stated. The connivance of the company in the illegal export of the iron ore was unearthed after seizure of documents including the data stored in a computer last year, and it was found that the company was paying bribes regularly to port and customs authorities, police department, forest and mines officials, besides MLAs and MPs.The abstracts of payments made to various departments were found from the documents seized. They revealed that the bribe amount was paid to officials corresponding to the position they hold.While the Port Director was to be paid `50,000 per ship sailed, port officer, deputy port conservator and port staff were regularly being paid `25,000, `5,000 and `5,500 respectively.The general mode of payment to customs officials was fixed at `12,000 per ship between April 26, 2006, and January 11, 2008, and the bar was raised to `10,000 per ship plus `0.50 per metric tonne on quarterly basis. There is also a mention of the payment made to police personnel. It said `1,00,000 to district superintendent of police bi-monthly, `25,000 per month to ASP, `10,000 to DSP, while circle inspector was given `14,000 per month and the outpost `2,000.The Karnataka Lokayukta has also recommended the state government to take criminal action under the existing laws on all those officials abetting illegal mining along with service providers at the Belikeri port.However, strongly denying the findings of the Lokayukta report linking its name to illegal mining, the company in a statement has stated that “linking Adani Enterprise’s name to any illegal iron ore mining is purely imaginary and intended to defame the company and drag it into an avoidable controversy”.
Comments
0 comment