Rourkela: The Sundargarh administration, on Wednesday, suspended the licence of Aryan Coal Beneficiation Pvt Ltd (ACBPL) after detecting illegal stockpiling of over 10,000 tonnes of coal outside its premises at Kanika in the Hemgir tehsil of the district. ACBPL, now known as ACB (India) Ltd, claims to be India’s largest and most efficient coal beneficiation company in the private sector.
Coal beneficiation refers to processes through which inorganic impurities are removed from raw, mined coal.
According to the New Indian Express, the Department of Mines, Odisha suspended the license of the coal beneficiation unit after this detection. The discovery of the illegal stock comes after massive illegal coal mining was unearthed inside the forests of Gopalpur range in the Hemgir block earlier this month, the newspaper says.
The administration has, however, clarified that there was no link between the illegal stock at ACBPL and coal thefts from the reserve and revenue forests of Gopalpur.
Sundargarh sub-collector Dasarathi Sarabu has been quoted by the newspaper as saying that an administrative team had verified the physical stock of ACBPL on April 10 and detected a shortage of about 2,800 tonnes. Authorities of ACBPL did not disclose about the storage of over 10,000 tonnes on a plot owned by it, around one km from the unit.
Sarabu said no permission was taken by ACBPL officials for storage of coal outside the unit in violation of guidelines, for which the mining department suspended its license and sought an explanation from its management.
The sub-collector said the coal stock was stored more than a year ago outside the beneficiation unit. Authorities suspect that coal stolen from nearby legal leasehold mines of Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL) and others were getting stacked on the plot of ACBPL and gradually getting processed at the unit. The illegal coal stock has been seized by the administration and further investigation is underway, Sarabu is quoted as saying.
ACBPL officials have told the newspaper that the additional coal stock was stored outside the unit’s campus to prevent a fire mishap. However, they failed to give any satisfactory reply as to why necessary permission was not sought from the mining department.
