Jharkhand forms SIT to investigate role of Railways in illegal transportation of minerals

“CM Soren has decided to fix the tenure of the SIT constituted by Mr Vinod Kumar Gupta (Retd. Chief Justice, Jharkhand High Court) as a member to investigate and prevent the role of Railways in illegal transportation of minerals within the state, for six months,” a press release by the Chief Minister’s Secretariat has said.

This assumes significance as Jharkhand has been in the news for the past one year over stone chips being illegally mined in the Sahibganj district, to the tune of Rs 1000 crore.

CM Soren’s aide Pankaj Mishra was arrested by ED earlier as a ‘kingpin’ accused and is currently under judicial custody. In the same issue, Soren was questioned by the ED. However, before his appearance, Soren, in a letter to the ED, had said to transport 8 crore metric tonnes of illegally mined stone (worth Rs 1000 crore as alleged), 4,500 trucks would be required every day for two years, whereas Sahebganj had only about 800 registered trucks.

Soren had added: “It appears that you (ED) have not identified loading of even a single rake (In the trains) without requisite challan as you have not taken action against any Railway officer. You claim that approximately 6,500 rakes loaded stone in the Sahibganj district during the past two years. Even if all these 6,500 rakes loaded only illegally mined stone, which cannot be the case, they would not be sufficient to transport the total quantity of 8 crore MT of illegally mined stone, which would fetch Rs 1,000 crore revenue,” the letter had said.

The Jharkhand Minerals (Prevention of Illegal Mining, Transportation and Storage) Rules, 2017, have been notified under Section-23 (C) of the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act to prevent illegal transportation of minerals in the state. According to Rule-9(1) of the notified rules, the transportation of excavated minerals by rail is also to be done only through the transport challan obtained from the JIMMS portal.

However, Soren added: “…several instructions have been issued for transportation of minerals with valid e-challan through the Mines and Geology Department and various Deputy Commissioner/District level officials. Despite all these efforts, information is being received from various sources that large quantities of minerals are being transported/dispatched through Railways without valid e-Challans. In this context, information/data has been sent by the Deputy Commissioner, Dumka regarding transportation of stone chips without permit/challan from railways. The involvement of railway officials is reflected in this irregularity. Therefore, it has been decided to form a one-member SIT to investigate and suggest ways to prevent the role of railway officials in illegal transportation of various minerals within the state.”