Patna,(BiharTimes): An organized crime syndicate is operating on National Highway-2 (Grand Trunk Road) in Bihar and Jharkhand in collusion with a section of transporters, commercial taxes and police authorities are duping the Centre and the state governments of thousands of crores every year.

According to a Times of India story a report sent by former Kaimur SP Shivdeep Lande to the Bihar Police headquarters last month said that at least 20% of these trucks carry "subsidized" coal to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). Certain MSMEs get their supplies from their respective states, which are allocated a quota of coal by coalfields on the advice of the coal ministry as an incentive for generating employment in undeveloped regions.

The extent of the revenue loss in Bihar, according to the daily, alone can be gauged from how transport, mining and commercial taxes officials realized Rs 71.44 lakh as penalty from 500-odd trucks caught on September 27 by police at Karmnasa (Kaimur), one of the four integrated check posts installed by the Bihar government.

Records maintained by the Karmnasa check-post near the Bihar-UP border reveal that about 1.1 lakh trucks crossed the border to enter UP in November. If such checks had been conducted every day, Bihar could have realized at least Rs 158 crore in one month. This means the state is losing around Rs 1,800 crore every year in revenue related to commercial taxes and transport, the report said.

Central Coalfields Limited sources was quoted in the Times of India as saying that it supplies 4.47 lakh tonnes of coal to Jharkhand and one lakh tonnes to Uttarakhand for the purpose. Though Bihar gets such coal from another coalfield, sources in the Bihar Industries Association said it has a quota of 3.85 lakh tonnes.

However, when Bihar Police investigated the matter, it found most of the MSMEs non-existent.

The probe into the coal racket began when Lande was the SP of Rohtas district and 65 "subsidized" coal-laden trucks were caught at a depot off NH-2 in Dehri-on-Sone in May last and coal-related documents seized from them.

Jai Maa Kali Enterprises, Maa Shakti Trading and R K Enterprises of Dhanbad were not found anywhere at their addresses during a physical verification by police.

Ganesh Luxmi Enterprises of Barkatta in Dhanbad was shut long ago, the report said.

Bhadra Kali Enterprises, Agrawal Coal Company, Maa Durga Traders, Anil Coal Suppliers Pvt Ltd, Saraswati Coal Agency, Jagdamba Enterprises, Poonam Suppliers and Tanmay Enterprises––all at Chandauli in UP––were also non-existent, the report said, adding some other firms were found running from just a room without even a warehouse to store the consignment.

That these coal-laden trucks were parked at a depot where coal is sold in the open and not anywhere near the firms for which the consignment was procured, is a pointer to the fact that the "subsidized" fuel is sold in the open market at a premium, the sources quoted the SP's report as saying.

Such a scam has been an open secret for long. It is, however, probably for the first time that an SP has reported this to the Bihar Police HQ and also attached hundreds of pages of probe reports to highlight the gravity of the loot.

Lande, who has since been transferred to STF, refused to speak to the daily about the report. “I have submitted the report to the ADG (HQ),” he told the daily.