Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
Report of Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) tabled in Orissa Assembly on June 23 exposes nasty facets of Orissa administration that patronizes private companies at the cost of the people.
Samples are galore. Private Companies have used the State Government to acquire vast volumes of land by misuse of Land Acquisition Act. Public Sector IDCO makes the acquisition under cover of ‘public purpose’ to hoodwink the law and on obtaining the lease of such land as well as government plots, subleases the same to private companies.
Besides having located the illegalities in these deals, the CAG has come out with chilling information on how illegally the IDCO has helped some of the companies obtain thousands of crores of rupees from Banks by mortgaging the lands subleased to them.
According to CAG, on the basis of ‘no-objection-certificate’ (NOC) issued by IDCO, banks have sanctioned Rs. 52,423.50 crores to 12 industries against mortgage of 8489.828 acres of land that belong basically to the State Government, as IDCO is merely the lease holder. Issuance of NOC to help industries bag bank loans of such massive amount by mortgaging the land subleased to them by the IDCO is not permissible under the law, the CAG has said.
As far back as August 2010, a low-paid night watchman of IDCO was captured by the State vigilance for disproportionate property worth around Rs.2.6 crores. The vigilance is yet to tell the public as to what has happened to the said watchman Rajanikant Jena. A top functionary of the team that had raided Jena’s house then had confided in me that the watchman was witness to underhand transactions in land allocation and had amassed the wealth including cash amounting to Rs. 33,43, 960 seized during the raid, by blackmailing the compradors in official chairs of IDCO.
The unauthorized NOC that has helped industries cultivate sanction of Rs.52,423.50 crores bank loans against lands allocated to them in Orissa, are all compradors working for them from their chairs in IDCO.
This is a crime against the people of Orissa. it is incumbent upon the the State Government to act against these compradors. The night watchman episode made it clear that compradors are active in IDCO from top to lowest layer. Every position in IDCO that has attracted attention of CAG, should be subjected to prosecution for violation of rules and norms in eagerness to serve the interest of private industries in matter of allocation of land, grant of NOC to mortgage the same land for cultivating bank loans to the tune of around Rs.53 thousand crore,
To begin with, their properties should be sealed/seized till determination of innocence, if any.
And, vigilance should tell the people if Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has no role in this offense.
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