Extortion has reached alarming proportions here with truck owners being the primary victims.
Money is extorted from truck operators owing allegiance to Brajrajnagar Truck Owners Association and Bandhbahal Truck Owners’ Association against coal transportation from mines under Ib Valley, Lakhanpur and Orient area of MCL. And this has allegedly been continuing for several years in connivance with police and MCL officials. Dimension of the extortion business annually runs between Rs 20 crore and Rs 30 crore.
Sources revealed that it is mandatory for all truck owners to get registered with the two associations for getting the transportation slip of ‘road sale of coal’. Each truck owner has to dole out Rs 340 per trip to the respective associations against which, they get a receipt for just Rs 20. The payload contractors are the key elements of the money distribution channel who keep Rs 80 from each truck per trip. Each of the affected truck owners who hardly get work of 20 trips in a month have to unlawfully part with Rs 6,400.
Brajrajnagar MLA Anup Sai said he had raised the issue in the Assembly in 2010 and unsuccessfully discussed it with the MCL CMD. “Only a CBI inquiry can dig out the truth,” he said.
Jharsuguda SP KS Kanwar said he is aware of this ‘hearsay’. “In the absence of specific complaints, police can do little,” he added.
MCL General Manager for Ib Valley Area RP Gupta said the MCL Vigilance wing had also inquired into these allegations. “But the Vigilance sleuths could not reach the root of it,” he said.
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