DNA reported that can a state chief minister go out of his way to help a company grab land, triple the size of a project, get the project shifted, and to top it all, help get a coal block with 212 million tonne reserves allotted to it?

Mr Arjun Munda Jharkhand Chief Minister, seems to have done all that.

He has granted massive favors to the coal and loan scam tainted Abhijeet Group, helping it set up a 2.5 million tonne per annum integrated steel plant in the Kharsawa-Saraikela district of Jharkhand, which is his constituency.

An investigation by DNA shows that Mr Munda not only wrote a recommendation letter to the coal minister for allocating a coal block to Corporate Ispat Alloys Ltd a subsidiary of the Abhijeet Group, but also facilitated a massive land grab.

CIAL signed a memorandum of understanding with Jharkhand on March 26, 2004, for setting up a 0.75 million tonne per annum steel plant in Latehar district with a proposed investment of INR 1,335 crore.

Munda then wrote a letter to Dasari Narayan Rao then minister of state for coal, on August 20th 2004, recommending that the Chittarpur coal block in North Karanpura be allotted to CIAL. This block has a whopping 212 million tonne reserves of coal.

DNA has reviewed this letter written by Mr Munda, which said because CIAL is setting up a 0.75 million tonne per annum steel plant in the backward district of Jharkhand, the state recommends that the Chitarpur coal block be given to the company.

The letter written by Munda said that “I shall be grateful if you could kindly issue appropriate instructions to the concerned officials of the coal ministry in this matter in the interest of economic development of the backward district of Jharkhand.”

Source - DNA

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