Business: The CBI has registered a case of alleged corruption against Aditya Birla Group’s Hindalco, the country’s leading aluminium producer, for obtaining environmental clearance for coal mining between 2011 and 2013. Officials said this on Tuesday. The agency has also named T. Chandni, then director in the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, for favouring the company as member secretary of the Expert Assessment Committee (EAC) in granting mining permission in violation of the ministry’s guidelines at Talabira-I mine in the highly polluted area of Odisha’s Jharsuguda. The central investigating agency registered an FIR against Hindalco and Chandni under Section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act after a preliminary investigation of about eight years. Reacting to the FIR, a Hindalco spokesperson said, “This is an old case pertaining to 2014-15. These mines were de-allocated under the government’s allocation process. It is a matter of public record where more than 100 mines were de-allocated.”
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had registered a preliminary inquiry in 2016 on allegations that Aditya Birla Management Corporation Private Limited (ABMCPL) had allegedly paid “huge bribes” to the officials of the ministry between 2011 and 2013 to obtain mandatory environmental clearance for coal mining from Talabira. The findings of the probe revealed that the ministry had in 2006 made it mandatory for a company to seek environmental clearance for all new projects, expansion of existing products and any change in product mix at an existing manufacturing unit. Projects requiring prior environmental clearance had to go through an EAC consisting of experts from various disciplines. The clearance was granted by the regulatory authority based on the recommendation of the EAC. Hindalco received its first environmental clearance in 2001 to mine 0.4 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of coal from the Talabira-I mine. Another clearance was given for its expansion in January 2009, increasing mining from 0.4 MTPA to 1.5 MTPA. About a month after the second clearance, the company sought to double its capacity to 3 MTPA, which the EAC had to consider.
