New Delhi: The CBI has booked the country’s leading aluminium producer Hindalco — an Aditya Birla group company — for alleged corruption in getting environmental clearances for coal mining between 2011 and 2013, officials said on Tuesday.
The agency has also named T. Chandini, the then director in the Union ministry of environment and forests, for favouring the company as member-secretary of the expert appraisal committee (EAC) in allowing mining in the Talabira-I mine in the critically polluted area of Odisha’s Jharsuguda in violation of ministry guidelines, they said.
The central probe agency registered an FIR against Hindalco and Chandini under Section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act after a nearly eight-year-long preliminary inquiry.
Reacting to the FIR, a Hindalco spokesperson said, “This is an old matter pertaining to 2014-15. These mines were de-allocated as part of the government’s de-allocation process. This is a matter of public record where more than 100 mines were de-allocated.”
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registered the preliminary inquiry in 2016 on allegations that the Aditya Birla Management Corporation Private Limited (ABMCPL) had allegedly paid “massive bribes” between 2011 and 2013 to ministry officials for getting mandatory environmental clearance to mine coal from Talabira.
The findings of the inquiry showed that the ministry had made it mandatory in 2006 for a company to seek environment clearances for all new projects, expansion of existing products and any change in the product mix in an existing manufacturing unit.
The projects needing prior environmental clearance were supposed to go through the EAC, consisting of experts from different disciplines.
PTI
