The State Government has attached properties worth over Rs 3.17 crore of Athagarh-based Maheswari Ispat Private ltd (MIPl) under the Odisha Public Demand Recovery (OPDR) Act.
The 0.25-MTPA-capacity steel plant, which had set up two 12-MW captive power plants (CPPs) inside its premises, had not paid the requisite electricity duty to the State Government ever since the CPPs began generating power in 2010, said Athagarh Sub-Collector Trilochan Pradhan, who attached the properties under the direction of the District Magistrate (DM).
Earlier, the court of the District Magistrate adjudicating a petition of the Energy Department had found that the MIPl had generated power from its CPPs up to April 30, 2012 and had not made any effort to pay the electricity duty to the Government for the power it had generated despite repeated notices from the concerned department.
“We have attached three numbers of 1,000-KV generators, transformers and other equipments of the CPP worth over Rs 3.17 crore as the outstanding electricity duty pending with the steel plant is pegged at a little over Rs 3.16 crore,” Pradhan said.
It may be mentioned that the Rs 210-crore steel plant, located at Rampei village under the Khuntuni police station, was commissioned in 2009, and it soon entered into rough weathers forcing the owners to stop production since 2012 as the State Government failed to provide it the requisite raw materials like coal and iron ore as per the MoU signed in November 2004.
It was, however, not immediately known whether the MIPl was operating its CPPs ever since the steel mill was closed.
But official sources said the electricity duty was calculated at Re 0.20 per unit the CPPs generated and the pending amount was calculated accordingly. Sources further disclosed that the properties of the MIPl attached are now under the custody of the local police and efforts would be made by the Government soon to auction them in order to recover the pending dues.