Chandrapur: District Minister Guardian Vijay Wadettiwar on Monday ordered a probe to 4.50 lakh tons of coal away from Baranj OpenCast Mine of Karnataka Power Corporation Limited (KPCL) near Bhadravati in 2018-19.
During the meeting held with Ajay Gulhane collector and others, Wadettiwar claimed that he had received complaints about coal theft of 4.50 lakh tons from the KPCL mine.
Therefore, the question has been ordered to verify how and where this coal is discarded.
Baranj Mines of KPCL has conducted mining in Baranj I-IV, Block Kiloni and Manora in Bhadravati Tehsil from September 2008 to March 31, 2015.
The mine was closed after the coal block allocation in accordance with the Supreme Court’s command in March 2015.
According to the administration , The company has explored 1.51 coal tonne crore until February 2015.
From here, 1.47 crore tons of coal sent and the mine was left with a stock of 4.51 lakh tons, when the mine was closed.
However, all coal has been lost from stock in the range of several months in 2018-19.
The Ministry of Mining has conducted an investigation into this issue after complaint at that time the Minister of State Hansraj Ahir and former MLA Nana Shamkule.
Then the additional district collector of the Kalante Sachin and the Mining Officer of the Kambani regency had examined the stock of coal in July 2019.
In their report, they had concluded that around 94,000 tons of coal were burned into ashes and nothing was left to recover.
Police complaints were submitted in this case, but the problem was thrown into the backburner.
Based on complaints submitted to him, Wadettiwar took this problem and ordered an investigation into the loss of 4.50 lakh tons of coal.
He claimed that if a large number of coal had been burned, the local residents would pay attention to it.
But no one has information about burning a large number of coal on the stock page.
The Minister claimed there was a possibility of large-scale abuse and therefore an investigation needed.
4,50l tons of coal ‘lost’, the minister ordered an investigation
