In what substantiates the series of reports appearing in The Pioneer regarding multi-crore scam in the 12 major ports of India, including Haldia Port, letters exchanged between the Board of Trustees (BoT) for Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT) and the Shipping Ministry show that Kolkata Port authorities lost more than Rs 37 crore in royalty on account of lackadaisical handling of things by the Ministry from December 2012 onwards.
Moreover, the benefit that emerged out of the losses suffered by the KoPT — a Central Government subsidiary — have gone to the private operators called Handling Agents functioning at Haldia Dock Complex and “unscrupulous officials and their political bosses in the Ministry”, inside sources said. Copies of the letters accessed by this correspondent suggest that timely decision taken by the Ministry could have earned the Government a royalty of Rs 37.5 crore.
The Pioneer has already exposed scams worth several lakh crores taking place in various major ports for the past several decades on account of an unholy nexus among the private handling agents, the BoTs and the Ministry mandarins. According to reports, the BoT for KoPT, vide a Resolution Number 131 of its meeting held on December 13, 2012, decided to levy an ad hoc royalty of Rs 25 per metric tonne on around 10 million of cargo handled by private shore cargo handling agents. It was also decided that the decision would be operational till contractors for handling such cargo were finalised through tender/auction.
For the records, the private handling agents have been operating in clear violation of the relevant Sections 42 and 43 of the MPT Act. “For reasons best known to the Ministry — where some functionaries were hand-in-glove with these private handling agents — instead of ratifying the decision taken by the KoPT Board it sat on the said letter sent on December 24, 2012 for six months before rolling the ball back to the BoT court asking it to take the necessary decision vide a letter dated June 13, 2013,” sources said, wondering who gobbled up this Rs 37 crore which should otherwise have gone to the Government.
Incidentally, while giving his legal opinion on the issue, a Senior Advocate of Calcutta High Court had stated that the Board could enter into “agreements or such other arrangements” with private handling agents as per Section 42(3a) “with the previous approval of the Central Government.” Hence, there was no legal hassle for the Ministry to give a go-ahead to the Port to earn the royalty, a former official complains adding “such funds are extremely necessary for the KoTP particularly when its pension and other liabilities go up to Rs 3,200 crore.”
In this case, the ex-HDC official says, “the Central Government — that is the Ministry of Shipping — should have ratified the decision taken by the BoT instead of rolling the ball back in the KoPT court and giving the local clique of corrupt officials and handling agents ample opportunity to pipe down more than Rs 37 crore by taking advantage of the prevailing loopholes.”