 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. As early as 2018, the Chennai-based NGO Aropor Iyakam raised the Tamil Nadu's coal scan, which was to the tune of 6,000 crores and more. And recently, since the release of the Hindenburg papers, the issue has once again made news. The papers said that the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence revealed there was a huge over-evaluation of coal by the Adhani group to the extent of 50% to 100%. So in this context, the Aropor Iyakam has once again asked the DMK-led government to look into the matter and to ensure that its electoral promise is met and to investigate the previous regime's financial scans. To speak on the matter, we have with us Mr. Jayaram Venkatesh, the founder of Aropor Iyakam. Hello, sir. Thank you so much for joining us. Sir, can you begin by telling us why did the AI-ADMK-led Tamil Nadu government purchase the overpriced coal to the Adhani group since 2012? Tamil Nadu's electricity board, called Panjek coal, procured these coal. These are primarily imported coal from Indonesia. And as we know, the Tamil Nadu runs several thermal power plants in North Chennai, May 2nd and so on. So for these plants, at least 40-50% of the coal that is used are imported coal. And to import these coal, what happened was that there seems to have been a very clear collusion between the government and certain private contractors. What has happened is that, in fact, CAG has very clearly pinpointed about the way in which the tender conditions have been framed to make sure just a handful of three or four people can participate in it. And using that, they have done a lot of manipulation over time. So what has happened is that for even for a tender where the tender value is just 100 crores or 150 crores, they have asked for turnover condition of almost 1000 crores. So this ensured that a lot of medium level players are ruled out of the competition and only a selected bunch of people like Adhani, Chettinad Logistics, Knowledge Systems. There are these three or four companies, MSTC. These are three or four companies which are able to participate. Now that created the platform for the collusion very easily. Since they had to manage only with a very handful of people who can alone participate. So what has happened is that the coal that was imported, now the Tanget Co very clearly knows that the Indonesia government every month releases a market price of how much, what is the price of coal. So if they had just compared, they very well know that what is the market price and what is the quotation that these people are giving. Between 2012 to 2016 alone, 2.44 crores of metal in tons of coal was imported. And out of this 50, almost 49 percent, close 50 percent was given to Adhani alone. And what we found is that in all these tenders, it was, if you look at the average, it was somewhere around 20 dollars more than the market rate per metric ton. So we had compared tender wise. There were some tenders which were 10 to 15 dollars, but many of the tenders were 15 to 20 dollars more than the market rate. And there was another comparison with that we had made as well, which is with Tamil Nadu New Spring Paper Limiter, which also purchases coal, imported coal, which also purchases the same quality of coal that Tanget Co is purchasing, which is 6000 kilo calorie, there is a moisture level that is defined, there is a sulfur level, there are different these things. And it is almost the same. In fact, if you have to say TNPL is slightly higher quality maybe, that's what we can say. So therefore TNPL, in spite of the very similar quality, had purchased coal almost 20 dollars less than Tanget Co at the same point of time. We had compared in 2014, we had compared in 2015. In fact, if you look at the days, they were just a two-day or three-day gap between the purchase of these people. So it was very clear that the O-invoicing has happened. And as you rightly pointed out, the DRI has clearly found as well that there is a 50 to 100 percent O-invoicing. They have mentioned Tanget Co. They have mentioned Adani groups and some of these other groups that has participated as well. So this has created a huge loss in this place, a huge burden on the exchequer. To the tune of it, you can calculate if it is 20 dollar per metric ton for 2.44 crore metric ton, how much this would be. So we had calculated that and there is a second type of loss that has happened, which is on the quality of coal. So on the quality of coal, CAG has found out, they had checked one-third of the consignments. In one-third of the consignments, customs had also checked for the quality of the coal. In their quality certificate, they had mentioned it as 4000 to anywhere between 4000 to less than 6000 kilocalories for different consignments. Whereas for the same consignment, Tanget Co happened as 6000 kilocalories. So therefore, they calculate the difference in quality for the same consignment, which means Tanget Co's quality certificate seems to have been fudged, seems to have been faked in terms of the quality. And therefore, they calculated a loss of 800 crores on one-third of the consignment alone, which was checked randomly. So therefore, if you look at the entire set of consignment, it is estimated close to 2400 crores. So if you put together the pricing loss as well as the quality loss, put together it comes to 666 crores. And therefore, this entire amount of loss that has happened, we have documented very clearly, we have attached all the evidence, we have got all the documents through the Right to Information Act, the purchase orders of the TNPL, the purchase orders of the Tanget Co. And the public information, Indonesian market price has been public information, so we have got that. So we have then submitted all of this to the CBI, to the direct rate of vigilance and anti-corruption in 2018. But until now, there has been no action that has been taken in terms of investigating the Adani or others or the Tanget Co officials who have been involved in this. Why did the previous government make such a big scam? Did they have some gains out of it? In fact, we have, when we inquired with various, some of these scams, they come out, primarily because there are honest officials within the government, they know what is happening within the government. So what we heard is that there was a very clear cut pollution between public servants and the corporates that were supplying the code. And there were a lot of gains that were made by some of these public servants through these number one. Number two, we must understand that all these payments were made not just within the country, many of them have been made outside the country. For example, the Adani group which participated was Adani Global PT Limited, which was in Singapore. So the payment was made to Singapore. And now we are seeing in the Himmberg and other reports that these over-evaluated diamond trading, a lot of these scams have happened. And it raises a very important question that when there are so much of shell companies that have been floated outside the country, whether these gains that were made illegally from our electricity boards have been part outside through these various shell companies and then whether it has been brought back into the Adani public enterprises and other. So number one, all these people have made plenty of gains, plenty of gains that are illegal in nature. Not only that, you must understand that the Tamil Nadu electricity board is suffering from a heavy loss of 1.5 lakh crores. And recently the Tamil Nadu electricity board had increased the tariff, placed these losses on the public. So therefore, it is the public that are directly suffering because of these scams. And the action, in fact, no action has been taken so far primarily because there are these heavy-bite public servants, the senior level public servants such as even IAS officers who seem to have been involved in this scam. So therefore, the government is not willing to agree. We have also included the name of the then minister, Natham Vishwanathan. We have provided some of the details. We heard that there is a large cricket stadium that has been built in Natham, which is through his very close friend. And we had placed these evidences as well to the DVSE and said, you must probe the link of where money came for an engineering college to build a cricket stadium of almost 100 crores. So therefore, all these have been provided for them to inquire. But so far, very little has happened with respect to the inquiry. Even CDI has not even initiated anything so far. The directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption has also, the previous government, when they were there, they tried to hush up and close it immediately. And the current government, even after several requests, they did not pursue the complaint so far. So only recently, after all this has come out, we are hearing they may take it up, but we still don't have any confirmation. You already mentioned about the loss that the electricity board is going through, and as well as the increase in tariffs. Is there anything else you would like to mention as an impact of this scam? A scam as large as this? See, what we have to understand is that in Tamil Nadu alone, we are talking about a 6000 crore loss. And this has not happened just in Tamil Nadu. It has happened throughout the country in various electricity boards. The same order sovereignty has been followed in various places. So therefore, the total quantum of loss, for example, whatever DRRI with respect to pricing alone, they estimate it as somewhere around 28000 crores or so is what we heard. So therefore, and if you look at the quality, the quality, in terms of quality, whatever loss has happened, I think this is going to be somewhere around 50,000 crores throughout the country, if you include pricing and quality. So this means a lot of electricity boards in the country, which are public sector enterprises are made to suffer through these scams. And it may take many, many years for these public sector companies to even get back. Now there is talk of privatized electricity because they are not able to do a good job. Just imagine that these electricity boards, the money from these electricity boards are taken to many of these private corporates illegally for just doing corruption and so on. And tomorrow if these private people enter the electricity and if they are going to supply, what will happen? The tariffs will keep on increasing is what can happen. There was a wonderful opportunity for the electricity boards over the last few years. We must understand that, for example, in Tamil Nadu, in 2013-14, our demand of electricity was 14,000 crores. Even today, the demand hasn't increased much. So over the last 19 years, if you look at the demand of electricity, the demand has not increased. If you look at the supply of electricity, supply of electricity that is available, you will be able to see that the price of coal decreased between 2020-2016 significantly. And the rate was on the lower side for many years. Only in the recent last two years, it has increased tremendously. If you look at the rate at which private thermal power plants are produced and gave electricity, in the market, it was 2.5 rupees. So the cost of power became cheaper. The solar power has become cheaper. So there is a lot of supply at a cheaper rate over the last few years. On the demand side, your demand hasn't increased much. So this is a wonderful opportunity for most of the electricity boards to get their electricity boards from negative or loss to break even stage. But unfortunately, the reverse has happened, which is they have gone into lakhs of crores of losses like Tanjipur. So which means the only reason this has happened is because of many of these corruption that has been happening in these electricity boards. So therefore, they have to now focus on getting back these money from these big corporates that has looted the public's money. And only that way, we can make sure that the lost money can be used for at least meeting out some of the losses of these electricity boards. Otherwise, the tariff will keep on increasing and the public has to face the heat continuously. Coming back to Tamil Nadu, why exactly is the DMK government hesitant to inquire into the alleged scam because it happened between 2012 and 2016 when the ADMK was a ruling party. So and you have been appealing repeatedly. Why is that, what is the response you're getting from the DMK government? There is a stark silence that we are seeing from the DMK government. They are not, in fact, the electricity minister of Sindhil Balaji has not even spoken a word about Adhan or other people with respect to these coal import scams and other things. Our chief minister hasn't spoken about it with respect to the Tamil Nadu's coal import scam. In fact, in 2018, he gave a statement that CBI must investigate it. But after he came to power, he has the power to order an investigation into the coal scam, but he hasn't done that as well. So what we are seeing is that this seems to be twofold. Number one, they also want to safeguard many of the senior officials who are part of the current system as well, who were part of the scam at that point of time, who are part of the system where they want to save them. So therefore, there is a senior level bureaucratic lobby that is preventing the investigation as well. Number two, Tamil Nadu governments, even until today, some of these people are still participating in the tenders of Tamil Nadu electricity board like Adhani and other people. They have signed an MOU with them on other projects and so on. So they don't want to actually take action on Adhani or other people in terms of FIR and charge sheet them and so on. This seems to be the case. So therefore, their entire opposition with respect to this whole thing seems to be only on the political side, wherein they are demanding JPC at the central level. They are saying that the joint parliamentary committee is needed to probe the Hindenburg research and other things. But on the other side, when they directly have power in their hand to register FIR, the investigated charge, she prosecuted all the offenders who have looted the public money into the tune of thousands of gross, they are refusing to do. So this double standard is what we have been questioning the DMK government of. We want them to at least see the investigation in criminal law investigation can start only after registration of it. And therefore, they have not been even willing to start it. And another thing is Mr. Sindal Balaji in August 2021 came up with a finding saying that 2.38 lakh tons of coal is missing from these power plants, from our power plants and that they are going to order an inquiry into this whole thing. Now they have gone completely silent on that inquiry report as well because what we are hearing is that this lost coal with this missing coal is primarily because of the imported coal that had come and this loss seems to have happened between the time of transit from the ship to the power plant. So for which the same private contractors will be held liable. And therefore, after understanding this, Mr. Sindal Balaji seems to have gone silent. The reason he said they have sent to Vigilance and Vigilance will do it and so on. Now what happened to your own department inquiry? You inquired it, you have to tell the people. In fact, he questioned the previous Minister Pankamani saying that if he had actually done an inquiry as he says, why was the coal lost? What is the reason for the missing coal? What action has been taken on people who did that and all that? Now the same questions Mr. Sindal Balaji has to answer because what happened to his inquiry report, what happened to, what are the who are the officials he has suspended or dismissed in the last one and a half years to department action and can he, why is the Vigilance and anti-corruption, if they have actually sent it to Vigilance and anti-corruption for doing investigation? Why has the Vigilance and anti-corruption not even registered an FIR on the missing coal aspect? Because there are two issues. One is the transit coal is being lost for which also the private contractors will be liable. Number two, when lower quality coal comes in, you have to add more of it in order to generate the same amount of electricity. So you have to generate one megawatt, you have to use more quantity of 4500 kilocalories instead of the 6000 kilocalories. So they had on record said that all these are 6000 kilocalories. So therefore, if they add more than what is required for 6000 kilocalories, then questions will come tomorrow why the efficiency of the plant is so low when you are putting in 6000 kilocalories. Therefore, to avoid it, they had put more of the 4500 kilocalories into the plant, but they have accounted only for whatever quantity is required for 6000 kilocalories. So this difference will be here. Yes, also the reason for the missing coal and the second reason is there is a lot of moisture that is added during the transit and therefore, that is another reason. They spray these coal with a lot of water before it enters the plant and using that they have added the weight. And once it enters the next day, the weight will be lost. So this is another methodology that seems to have been used. So these are things that we hear from people inside the Tangeco who have said that how this missing, what is the reason for this missing coal. Now, Mr. Sindhil Balaji has to say whatever now I am saying may be true, may not be true because we do not have evidences to say that this is what has happened in terms of the missing coal. But these are the things that we hear from inside. So Mr. Sindhil Balaji should tell the public whether Jaira Magadishan is lying on this, what is the truth behind the missing coal then. So he has to come out and say open, he has to say who are the officials he has prosecuted, who are the contractors he has blacklisted on this. No blacklisting has happened, no suspension has happened, no FIR has happened. This shows the political will of the DMK to take action on corruption. I really hope that in the coming days that they will really look into the coal scam because the share quantity of the value that we are talking about is really big and it's a huge loss. So we really hope in the coming days investigation will happen in this matter. So thank you sir, thanks a lot for joining us and giving us such in-depth details and what exactly has likely been happening like you said that we cannot say exactly what happened but likely been happening in this. So with respect to the 6000 crore scam it is very clear with the evidences, with respect to the missing coal they have to come out. In fact part of the missing coal is because of the imported coal quality losses what we hear. And therefore they have to come out with very clear inquiry report saying that how exactly it happened. Thank you sir, thanks a lot for joining us. Thank you.