VIJAY
Ranchi, March 3: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday seized Rs Three Crore linked to the IAS Pooja Singhal during a raid at the premises of Hazaribag residence one Md. Ezhar Ansari.
Md. Ezhar Ansari controls Kahkasha group of companies and well-placed sources confided that Md. Ezhar used to collect and manage cut money on behalf of the then mining department Pooja Singhal. She was arrested by Enforcement Directorate (ED) in May last year in connection with the MNREGA scam. She is on provisional bail granted by the Supreme Court.
“The raid was conducted to investigate anomalies in the captive coal consumption case. In this regard raids were also carried out against former coal and sand in-charge of the Jharkhand State Mineral Development Corporation (JSMDC) Ashok Kumar Singh,” well-placed sources said.
The raid may further trouble Pooja Singhal as she occupied the post of managing director of JSMDC.
In 2007 the state government had brought a policy to provide coal to small and medium enterprises at cheap rate through coal mines of the companies of the central government undertakings. The JSMDC became the nodal agency for the supply of coal to such small and medium enterprises. It is alleged that Ashok Kumar and unknown officials of JSMDC used to charge commission from companies and enterprises and coal was sold in the open market.
