VIJAY DEO JHA
Ranchi, June 15: If not Chief Minister Hemant Soren, some people of his close circle were apparently very keen that the CM immediately gets a stone mining lease at Angara in Ranchi that has now proved a Gordian knot for him.
A well-placed person of the core group of the CM is claimed to have called an official of the State Level Environmental Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA) to give necessary environmental clearance to the CM’s mining project on a priority basis.
Well-placed sources claimed the official was conveyed in the clear term “CM will be very happy to be the mining lessee.” After the necessary process, namely letter of intent and mining plan, the lease application was forwarded to SEIAA for necessary environmental clearance. All these things took place in 2021 when someone from the close circle of the CM approached SEIAA for swift approval stating that the CM would be happy to be the mining lessee. SEIAA as per the rules and regulations gave necessary clearance but SEIAA officials too wondered to see the CM applying for a mining lease.
Since the matter pertains to the Chief Minister and the Enforcement Directorate is investigating this case officials fear summons of the ED or backlash from the department if they reveal anything.
But one senior official of the SEIAA at least admitted that he had heard something like this. “I too had heard something like this…to treat his application as a special case. But I can’t say who had called and to whom. But we did not violate any rule. The environmental clearance was given only after verifying the documents and the ground position. No matter if the applicant was the CM himself, we had sought some additional documents from him,” a senior official of the SEIAA revealed.
Bewildered over somebody claiming close to the CM is requesting favour for the CM, the said official of SEIAA called the then Ranchi DMO Satyajit Kumar to verify whether the applicant Hemant Soren is somebody else or the CM himself.
“Yes, we wondered when his application came before us for environmental clearance. We had not seen such a case in the past. We are no one to decide who can apply. Our mandate is to decide on any application on the basis of merits,” said a source at SEIAA.
The CM’s application reached Ranchi District Mining Officer (DMO) on May 28. On June 1, the DMO forwarded the matter to the Angara Circle Officer for some inquiries. The Angara gram panchayat approved the mining on June 7 and on the same day, the Angara Block Development Officer reported to the DMO that the gram sabha has given consent to the mining lease. On March 14, 2021, a land lease agreement was signed between Hemant Soren and nine persons of the village. On the basis of the letter of Ranchi DC Chhavi Ranjan, the DMO on June 16, 2021, issued a Letter of Intent giving ‘in-principle approval’ for the mining lease with some conditions. On September 9, the CM applied for environmental clearance and SEIAA gave clearance on September 22.
