CHANDIGARH: Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) ha reportedly released the pending  payments worth crores in the controversial case of  supply of  imported Chinese coal fot its thermal plants.

The payment against the supply of imported coal was stopped by the PSEB last October   when scam in supply of imported coal was highlighted in press following failure of test results of imported coal samples at Sriram Test House New Delhi.

Punjab Vigilance had registered a case against the PSEB on October 23 last year and an enquiry was conducted. After some time the then Punjab Government had closed the enquiry in this case along with some other cases.

PSEB had issued purchase orders for the supply of 4.42 lakh metric tons of imported  Chinese Coal  at the cost of Rs.220 crores for the Ropar Thermal Plant and 2.72 lakh tons of coal worth Rs. 130 crores for its Lehra Mohabatt Thermal Plant.

Initially HGI of imported coal was found within rejection limits as per purchase order specifications but board amended the purchase orders to facilitate the continuance of supply of imported coal. The problem again arose when the GCV of imported coal was
Found below the rejection limit of 6500.

After the failure of test results at Sriram Test House New Delhi the same samples were sent to NTPC for testing but the sample had failed there also. In case of GGSSTP Ropar the GCV was 6111 in case of test carried out at Sriram Test House and 6122 for tests carried out by NTPC. Both the values were well below the rejection limit of 6500.Similar was the test results for the samples of imported coal at Lehra Mohabbat thermal plant.

The PSEB took the stand before the vigilance commission that the samples taken were not proper at both places and hence the discrepancy arose in the test results.

Even during the testing of coal samples at the PSEB’s laboratory at thermal plants at least one rake sample each at both the thermal plants failed. GCV in case of test results carried   out at Ropar thermal plant for rake Number 53-B was 6454 The representative of the importer witnessed the testing but refused to sign the test results as a token of witnessing the tests. Similarly GCV in case of failed sample was 6440 well below the rejection limit.It is worthwhile to mention that one rake of imported coal cost Rs.1.75 crores.

A five member committee comprising of three Chief Engineers of Thermal Plants along with Chief Cost control & Reduction and Chief Chemist was formed to facilitate the release of payments as the firm was pressing very hard for early release of payments.

Two senior engineers were charge sheeted by PSEB as a follow up of enquiry. A K Singla Chief Engineer who was OSD coal at the time of placement of order and AK Dhingra his successor OSD coal were charge sheeted to divert the attention on the issue and quietly released the payments .Perhaps they were made escape goats to fizzle out any further departmental enquiry.

It is alleged that the test results were being manipulated by the firm’s representatives with the help of testing staff posted at both the plants. Sources informed that if the referee samples of each rake is got tested from two independent test houses the reality would emerge out clearly. In a number of cases the GCV of a particular rake was just shown above the minimum acceptance value of 6500.