Karnataka: KIOCL accused of selling dismantled property at throwaway price
KIOCL was allegedly deliberately declared as scrap by officials concerned and sold at throwaway prices
CHIKKAMAGALURU: Dismantled material in fairly good condition at the defunct Kudremukh Iron Ore Company Limited (KIOCL), was allegedly deliberately declared as scrap by officials concerned and sold at throwaway prices to favour a Chennai-based private steel company, resulting in huge financial loss running into crores.
The defunct iron ore company, according to Nagesh Angirasa of Save Democracy Forum, is alleged to have sold via tenders its properties to Annam Steel of Chennai for just Rs 227 crore when the company’s properties were worth a staggering Rs 6,000 crore.
A large number of equipment which were imported and were in good condition were sold at a throwaway price, the activist said adding that equipment particularly shovels, dumper, drilling equipment, dozers, cranes, electric motors, transformers among others could easily have been sold as a good unit for a much higher rate. It may be recalled that following a Supreme Court order in 2004, KIOCL, a public sector company, ceased operations and in 2012, sold its properties through tender to Annam Steel Private Limited.
Flouting all tenders rules by KIOCL and alleging a scam in the selling of dismantled properties of the ore company, Nagesh Angirasa told Deccan Chronicle on Friday that “The assessment was made not based on type of material and actual weight. Even while assessing the value of the steel, machinery and electrical item valuation was done not according to the prevailing market rate of scrap. There was absolutely no transparency in these valuations.”
“Interestingly the valuation of these properties for sale was done by Susheel Associates, Mangaluru, which has no such experience in the past,” Nagesh claims.
Further, the social activist claimed that the dismantling work at KIOCL was done in an “improper” way and has claimed many lives which went unreported. Nagesh says a letter has been written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking him to order a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the case and recover losses to the exchequer besides punishing the erring officials.