CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu government has given permission to the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti Corruption (DVAC) to start a preliminary enquiry into the alleged Rs 6,000-crore scam in the procurement of poor quality coal by state power utility Tangedco from an Adani group company between 2012 and 2016, sources said.
The permission was given in June by the public department headed by the chief secretary, sources said. No official statement, however, has been issued in this regard so far. A preliminary enquiry is to be carried out by the DVAC to check if the allegations made out in the complaint filed by an anti-corruption NGO in 2018 to the DVAC merit a formal registration of FIR.
The complaint is based on a 2017 CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General of India) report which said that Tangedco was supplied with lower quality coal (based on calorific value) from Indonesia by suppliers than what was mandated under the tender. The CAG had compared data from Customs to show that while the coal supplied had 4,500 KCal/kg calorific value, it was supposed to have 6,000 KCal/kg.
‘Tangedco manipulated tender conditions to favour company’
Of the 2.44 crore metric tonnes of coal supplied to Tangedco during that period, the Adani group company had supplied 1.19 crore metric tonnes, the complaint said, quoting documents.
NGO Arappor Iyakkam, which had filed the complaint with the DVAC, had also alleged that Tangedco officials had manipulated the tender conditions to favour the company. The NGO had also compared the coal purchase order of another state government organisation, Tamil Nadu Newsprint Ltd (TNPL), to show that coal bought by TNPL was $20 cheaper per metric tonne than the price paid by Tangedco.
Arappor’s convenor Jayaram Venkatesan told TNIE that they had constantly kept up the pressure on the DMK-led state government to investigate the case.
He also pointed out how the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) investigation published in the Financial Times had alleged that coal at the supply side in Indonesia was also found to be of a lower grade.