Top mining official set up illegal NGO to siphon money

In November 2009, as an additional secretary in the Union ministry of mines, S Vijay Kumar created an NGO, C-Tempo, without any cabinet approval. And soon after being promoted to the rank of secretary, he ensured that a neat sum of Rs4 crore was transferred to it from National Aluminium Company Ltd (Nalco), a public sector undertaking (PSU). The general financial rules (GFR) clearly state that any autonomous body created must have “prior approval” from the union cabinet. 

Ostensibly, the NGO was supposed to facilitate research on issues related to the ministry’s activities. There was just one problem with the NGO — in the absence of a mandatory clearance from the Union cabinet, it was patently illegal.

The issue landed on the table of the Union minister for mines, Dinsha Patel, a Congress leader from Gujarat who replaced BK Handique at the last cabinet reshuffle. Sources told DNA that Patel was extremely upset with Kumar’s move. However, he agreed to send a proposal to the cabinet with retrospective effect citing that Handique had approved it. Interestingly, Patel’s party colleague and MP from Orissa, Amar Pradhan has raised the issue with him on several occasions. Patel did not respond to a detailed questionnaire sent by DNA.

But Kumar’s indiscretion did not stop at merely creating the NGO. After registering it with the Societies’ Act, he promptly made himself the chairman, in his capacity as an additional secretary to the Government of India.

An IAS officer of the 1976 batch from the Himachal Pradesh cadre, Kumar failed to take any clearance from his controlling authority, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT). Incidentally, the DoPT comes directly under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
 Any IAS officer as per the All India Service (Conduct) Rules must seek permission from the DoPT to become a member of an NGO, let alone receive funds. But as the Secretary, Mines, Kumar lorded over all that he surveyed. (By 2010 it was clear that he would soon be promoted as the Secretary, Mines.) Meanwhile, as a Special Secretary in the same ministry, he managed to get a Rs20 lakh infusion of funds from the PSU, Nalco.

The then chairman and managing director of Nalco, Abhay Srivastava, was still awaiting his confirmation. As soon as Kumar took over as the Secretary, this was done and C-Tempo received another Rs3.8 crore from Nalco for “research.”

C-Tempo’s website claims that “the aim of the Society is to facilitate effective interaction between the investors, entrepreneurs, mining industry and the Central and State Governments and evolve policy options for stakeholders of the mineral sector including Government of India.” This also proved to be problematic.

At some point C-Tempo proposed that it be allowed to host a trade promotion event for mining equipment. One of their main partners would be a Canada-based company called Cubex. But this was immediately opposed by another senior Mines Ministry official who pointed out that this was a clear conflict of interest. How could an NGO, ostensibly a part of the Ministry, partner with a company that was in the running to get orders?

Ministry sources say that the CBI is likely to take up this case as well along with the Nalco case that was reported in DNA yesterday. If they do, they will have to send an application to the Cabinet Secretary seeking his approval to investigate Kumar’s role in the episode.