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Request ED to probe in an impartial manner: Hemant Soren

RANCHI: He added, “I would request the ED to carry out its investigations in an impartial manner. It should not make any claims about making breakthroughs in the case without ascertaining the facts and figures.”

Before he spoke to the media, the CM sent a letter to ED assistant director Deovrat Jha, challenging the agency’s claim of detecting financial irregularities of Rs 1,000 crore in mining in Sahibganj , his home constituency.



In the letter, he said, “The data available with the mining department would show that the total quantity of stone mined in Jharkhand in the last two years is about nine crores MT, of which boulders are 60%, stone chips 35% and stone dust etc 5%... of which approximately 20% is mined in Sahibganj.”

It added, “On one MT of boulder, a royalty of Rs 95 is levied, on one MT of stone chips, a royalty of Rs 175 is levied. On every MT of stone dust, a royalty of Rs 18 is levied. On an average, the royalty per MT of stone mined in Jharkhand would be Rs 120. To evade royalty of Rs 1,000 crore in two years, over eight crores MT stone needs to be illegally mined in Sahibganj, that is more than four times the legally mined quantity.”

The letter said, “To transport over eight crore MT of stone in two years, over 20,000 rakes or 33,00,000 trucks would be required as the capacity of each rake is about 4,000 MT and each truck is about 25 MT. Railways does not permit loading of rake without submission of mining/mineral challan. It appears that you have not identified the loading of even a single rake without the requisite challan as no action is taken against any railway officer. As per your claim, 6,500 rakes have to be loaded with only illegally mined stones, which cannot be the case as they would not be sufficient to transport eight crore MT to fetch a royalty of Rs 1,000 crore.”

“To transport such quantity of illegally mined stone, 4,500 trucks would be required every day for two years. Sahibganj has only about 800 registered trucks,” it says, adding that on the contrary, the royalty collection from stone mining has increased from Rs 270 crore in 2019-20 to Rs 360 crore in 2020-21 and Rs 382 crore in 2021-22 since he took charge, although mining was affected by the Covid pandemic.

“Approximately 20% of this royalty came from Sahibganj district.”

Hemant accused BJP of “coercing” Ravi Kejriwal to implicate him in the illegal mining case. He said, “Kejriwal was a treasurer of JMM until he was removed in 2020. An FIR was filed against him by JMM. Since then, Kejriwal has become my sworn enemy.”

BJP MP from Godda Nishikant Dubey said Soren should convince the ED by giving satisfactory answers instead of issuing public statements. In a tweet, he said, “Your letter to ED, accusations on BJP, Ravi Kejriwal (currently under arrest in illegal mining case)... all these moves are indicative of your fears. You are the son of ‘andolankari’ Shibu Soren. Show courage.”

In another tweet in the evening, he said the CM is unable to answer queries on his properties to the ED.

Former CM Babulal Marandi also tweeted, “Dear CM, one requires brain to even tell lies. The ED is not probing mining royalty loss, but illegal mining and theft of natural resources.”

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