'DNA' investigations: Coal worth millions plundered in eastern and central India

Mining coal was once a livelihood for villagers in coal-rich states. Now, it is a multi-crore business for the coal mafia.

While the mafia pocket crores, villagers get a few hundreds for mining coal illegally while the government gets nothing.

Though there has been no official study on the amount of loss to the exchequer, XLRI Jamshedpur carried out a survey on the request of the Jharkhand government. The XLRI report pegs the annual loss of coal companies in the state to Rs106 crore and that of the state government to Rs34 crore.

DNA correspondents visited the coal belt in central and eastern India to assess the magnitude of the scam and find out how the mafia works.

Documents with DNA point to illegal mining in at least 450 sites in the Jharkhand-Bengal belt alone. Copies of 176 FIRs and complaints obtained under the Right to Information Act show illegal mining has been going on in several districts of Jharkhand, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Orissa since 1995.

An official report with DNA says at least 616 FIRs on illegal mining were lodged in various police stations over the past four years. The report, however, does not specify the number of people convicted.

The mining is illegal but a meticulously planned distribution system sees to it that the mafia escapes the law while earning fat bucks. At least a million villagers in Jharkhand are involved in illegal mining, say the police.

Once coal is mined, villagers burn it and turn it into soft coal, free of ash, a senior officer said. The coal is then ferried to nearby factories on bicycles at Rs60 a bag. “A manager from one of the factories gave me this bicycle to carry coal,” a villager in Ramgarh district, Jharkhand, said. His cycle was laden with bags full of coal. A couple of the FIR copies confirm that villagers sell coal to nearby factories.

The mafia owns several such factories.

They usually enter into fuel supply agreements (FSA) with subsidiaries of Coal India Ltd (CIL) to use it as a garb to store tonnes of illegal coal in the factory premises and eventually sell it in the black markets of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

DNA correspondents found villagers carrying bags of coal on bicycles on the main roads and highways in Jharkhand and West Bengal. Each bicycle can ferry up to 400kg of coal.

The question is, if everyone is aware of the illegal mining and the role of the mafia, why do the police not do anything? The answer is simple: there is a nexus between the police, coal company officials, and the mafia. All of them are involved in mining, carrying, transporting and distributing illegally mined coal, a CBI officer in Jharkhand said. He has investigated several mining-related cases.

Just three months ago, the CBI had raided some such factories in Uttar Pradesh for buying illegally mined coal and later selling it in the black market at a huge profit. One of the factory owners is a relative of coal mafioso Brajesh Singh. The CBI officer said at least 600 trucks carry illegal coal out of Jharkhand daily on the Grand Trunk Road between two and four in the morning.

Cases have been registered in Jharkhand and West Bengal against Dhumal Singh, Brajesh Singh, Anil Sharma, Pradeep Beltharia, KP Handa, Sambhu Singh, Manager Rai and Nirmal Jain for mining coal illegally.

Most of the illegal mining happens in abandoned mines in Raniganj, West Bengal. DNA found out through the RTI Act that Eastern Coalfields Ltd (ECL) with its headquarter in Raniganj has 64 abandoned mines.

In Jharkhand, illegal mining also happens on fresh land. In Argada, Ramgarh district, Jharkhand, DNA correspondents found an illegal mine right next to a Central Coalfields Ltd (CCL) mine. The miners admitted that they supplied coal to a nearby factory run by a “big businessman”. But none of them was willing to come on record for fear of the mafia.

The miners (villagers) often burst explosives — stolen from colliery magazines — after the first entry point, called the foxhole. A majority of the rich coalmines are in isolated places — often in hilly terrain, forests and tribal areas.

Since illegal mining has been happening in these regions for several years now, the mafia has become more organised and powerful. It uses the illegal money to rope in others like the police and coal company officials. In some areas, the mafia is hand-in-glove with the underworld and even Maoists — everyone works to each other’s benefit.

At a meeting in October 2010, the parliamentary standing committee on coal highlighted this nexus terming the situation “grave”. The committee said in its report that it was strange that law enforcement agency had failed to prevent illegal coal mining.