After the coal scam, Coal India is now perturbed with the desperate pilferage of fund from its exchequer to the tune of several crores in the name of production and dispatch of processed overburden (POB), for which the senior officials have forwarded complaints with the vigilance department.

The operator of the lone POB plant introduced in the Eastern Coalfields, a CIL subsidiary, has been caught by a section of ECL officials for ‘overbilling’ or false billing. The CIL’s vigilance team, based on the complaints forwarded by the senior manager, Naba Kajora colliery and finance officer and custodian agent of Naba Jambad group of the subsidiary has started investigating the alleged pilferage of several crores of rupees through false billing against POB dispatch.

The CBI, meanwhile has charged the senior officials of Bharat Coking Coal (BCCL), another CIL company, for allegedly siphoning off Rs 22.16cr through illegal payments against coal extraction routed through a Dhanbad-based company in January, 2019.

For a period between 23 February and 24 July, 2023, the operator assigned to run the POB plant has submitted a false bill worth Rs 3.32 crore as a quantity difference of 1.30 lakh cubic metres could be detected by the officials in respect of quantity certified by the colliery and the quantity billed by the Hyderabad-based company.

In February 2023, the Paraskole East colliery certified receiving 4256.89 CuM but the bill claimed 34256.89 CuM. For Paraskole West and pits-5 & 6 of Khas Kajora mines, the respective mismatch figures were, 1227.46 CuM & 31237.46 and 1349.37 CuM & 71349.37 CuM respectively. The senior officials of ECL mines stated in their note-sheet on 11 October, 2023: “The bill and supporting documents have been tampered or changed with erroneous data.” The plant came into operation in September, 2022.

The GM, Kajora Area, ECL, SK Chowdhury said, “It’s three months on that the vigilance probe began and we are waiting for the outcome. By this time, though the company has been continuing production, bill payments have been suspended.” Mukesh Kumar Mishra, chief vigilance officer, ECL said, “The probe is in progress and it’s an internal issue. We can’t divulge anything on this.”

AV Subrahmanyam, chief of the Hyderabad-based company, however refuted charges of corruption and said, “It might be a computation fault. Our work with ECL is still in progress.” The company’s plant in ECL is capable of producing 3L CuM POB, annually.

In either type of mining industry, overburden (OB), a natural consequence is the waste rock or hefty soil layer that needs to be removed to get access to coal seams or ore targeted to be extracted. The OB removal is the key operation mandatory especially for the open cast coal projects, the dominant mining process across India. In underground mining, the leftover waste after coal extraction is tagged as ‘Tailing’ and it contains toxic components and seepage deposits. The OB usually is dumped besides the coal projects. After coal is exhausted in a mine, backfilling the mine voids with the OB as stowing material has emerged as a qualitative option alternative to the use of river sand. The washed and crushed waste rocks of the OB, using high-tech machines, are termed as processed overburden (POB).