Coal news and updates

Extortion complaint from coal belt again

Allegations of extortion continue in the coal belt, casting a shadow on Bengal's rickety industry. Yet another sponge iron factory in Jamuria has lodged a police complaint against three local Trinamool Congress leaders. The incident was reported after Mamata Banerjee warned against such extortion in the Trinamool rally at Esplanade on Monday.

Satyam Smelter managing director Shib Kumar Dalmia has lodged a complaint with Jamuria police, saying three local Trinamool leaders have been asking money from the company. Additional district commissioner of police (central) Biswajit Ghosh said he has already instructed the Jamuria police to start a probe.

The complaint comes close on the heels of a similar incident at Shyam SEL's Jamuria factory. The company lodged a police complaint though the cops are yet to act on it. Instead, the Burdwan district administration initiated an inquiry against Shyam SEL's alleged grabbing of government khas land in the vicinity soon after Mamata played down the disruption as a "small incident."

Dalmia told TOI that three local Trinamool men - Harishankar Chatterjee, Mukti Chatterjee and Arun Acharya ? blocked the trucks carrying fly-ash products from the company. They wanted each truck to pay them Rs 20 a trip. Contractor Sanjoy Singh, who handles transportation, suspended operations after coming under threat from the Trinamool toughs, said the MD.

The Trinamool trio is known to be close to suspended Trinamool leader Aloke Das, who has been accused of raking up trouble at the Shyam SEL factory. The Shyam SEL management had lodged a complaint against Aloke Das and Chanchal Chatterjee at the Nimcha police outpost. Das, however, denied the charge saying the named three didn't belong to Trinamool.

There was no sign of hope at ECL's JK Nagar Colliery either as the Joint Action Committee of trade unions failed to resolve the dispute on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, the colliery management issued a notice threatening a shutdown of operations and shifting of staff to other ECL mines within four days in case the government fails to round up Chunnu Lal Mishra, the accused Inttuc leader.

Fearing arrest, Inttuc leader Chunu Lal Mishra, accused of beating up senior manager B K Singh, took anticipatory bail from court. "I am innocent. I have been framed because I had protested against the company's decision not to allow miners to sign the attendance register if they arrived after 8 am. But the fact is that most of the miners work for about 11 hours instead of the stipulated eight hours. Why then they won't be allowed to sign the attendance register," Mishra said.

Niladri Roy, technical secretary of CMD of ECL, told TOI on Wednesday that the colliery management is working under fear. Colliery manager B K Singh isn't back to work yet. He is still in trauma. More CISF jawans were posted outside at the colliery on Wednesday. Sources said that labour minister Moloy Ghatak had briefed chief minister Mamata Banerjee about the incident and even talked with local Inttuc leaders and ECL officials on Tuesday evening.

Source: The Times of India