Union Minister of State Charandas Mahant on Saturday hit out at the BJP’s Chhattisgarh Government for blindly backing up illegal construction of BAlCO which has built up a 1200-MW thermal plant in Korba town without ‘layout approval and land use change’.
“It’s stunning that the BJP Government has given land diversion permission to BAlCO at its recent Cabinet meeting despite knowing that BAlCO constructed 1200-MW plant ignoring several rules. Even the Town and Country Planning Department too did not give layout permission for the plant,” Mahant said in a statement.
Mahant alleged, “The Chhattisgarh Government has decided to legalise the illegal construction of BAlCO in nexus with the top management of the company in a bid to extract major benefits from BAlCO in run-up to elections.” The State goes to polls by November-December and the Government chose to favour BAlCO this month at a Cabinet meet which was said to be the last meeting of the present BJP regime in Chhattisgarh before polls.
Mahant who is also the State unit chief of the Congress, has deliberately raised the BAlCO issue to discredit the BJP Government which is hoping to score a winning hat-trick in 90-member Assembly polls. The Cabinet decided to favour BAlCO despite a noted RTI activist Ashish Tiwari had alerted the Government in advance with fullproof documents to not to support BAlCO which has flouted all rules and regulations to build 1200-MW power plant.
Tiwari had submitted all documents which he obtained through RTI, to senior Ministers and top officials requesting them not to favour BAlCO as the company has dumped all rules and provisions required for power plant’s construction.
The BAlCO didn’t even respond to a mail sent to its Korba-based communication chief BK Sriwastwa by The Pioneer on September 11, seeking official version ‘how the company has built up its power plant without permission of the Korba Municipal Corporation and also without the layout approval by the Town and Country Planning Department.
It is significant to mention here that more than three dozen poor workers were killed in Sep 2009 when about100 metre-high (330 feet) chimney of the same BAlCO power plant in Korba crumbled during construction. The BJP government had ordered for a judicial probe into the industrial disaster after a massive protest broke out against the BAlCO management aftermath of the chimney collapse.