Racket busted,five arrested

The Chandrapur police have busted a diesel theft racket and arrested five persons,including a transporter,his two staff and an official each of Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and Western Coalfields Ltd.

“The culprits employed an ingenious trick to pilfer 500-600 litres of diesel from trucks supplying diesel to WCL for its mining operations. The trucks were fitted with levers in the driver’s cabin that controlled the diesel diversion mechanism from the container mounted on the truck to its diesel tank. Of the 12,000 litres supposed to be unloaded at a WCL centre in Durgapur mines area from the truck,500-600 litres would get directly into the truck’s diesel tank,which was specially enlarged to accommodate the extra diesel. The cost of the diesel so stolen would be about Rs 20,000,of which Rs 10,000 would go to the WCL store-keeper and 9,000 shared between the driver and cleaner; the transporter would get Rs 1,000. The drivers and cleaners won’t be given salaries,” said inspector Krantikumar Patil of Durgapur police. “It has not yet been ascertained what the IOC official would get. We have arrested him since he knew this and yet allowed it.”

Superintendent of Police Manoj Kumar Sharma said,“The racket has been active for the past few years,leading to loss of crores to WCL. In our estimate,it could be around Rs 25 crore.”

The arrested — transporter Sunil Chopde,his staff Sanjay Labhane and Rahul Meshram,IOC assistant depot manager (Tadali) Arvind Shrirame and WCL store-keeper Ashok Kumar Singh — have been remanded in police custody.

Incidentally,Chopde is the son-in-law of former Union Minister of State and former Chandrapur MP Shantaram Potdukhe. Police sources said Potdukhe had refrained from intervening on his behalf.

“We came to know that this is a common practice with many transporters,but the others apparently immediately removed the illegal attachments to their trucks. So,we couldn’t act against them,” Patil said.

Patil said the scale of the scam could be much bigger. “About 40 trucks of diesel are supplied to a WCL mine unit a month,thereby causing a possible loss of 20,000 litres; that is about Rs 9 lakh a month. There are about 22 such centres in the district. It could be happening elsewhere too; We are investigating.”