SAIL routes steel through Venkatesh Infra Projects P Ltd     

Under the Project MOU, over 1,50,000 Tonne of steel was sold to Venkatesh Infra Projects P Ltd by SAIL officials by illegally using the policy and discount guidelines applicable for Projects, although the firm was not doing any project or construction work. Out of the total quantity, about 1,10,000 Tonne were TMT Bars; about 25,000 Tonne were PMP Plates; about 15,000 Tonne were HR Coils and small quantities of other products.

The complaint (73 of 2023) against which  LOKPAL pronounced the order on Jan 10, 2024 was limited to sales of TMT Bars onlywhere accrued loss to SAIL was aboutRs 55 Crores. It has been gathered that two more complaints are available with  LOKPAL :

1.     Complaint on irregularities committed by SAIL Officials  in sale of PM Plates to Venkatesh Infra Projects Private Limited.

2.     Illegal payment of over Rs 4 CR to Venkatesh Infra Projects P Ltdtowards Turnover Discount : How the firm was reached magic figure of 1,35,000 T ?

It has been gathered that the above two complaints are also available with ACVO,CMO Kolkata; CVO, SAIL; CMD, SAIL; and  Secretary, Ministry of Steel. First complaint was also sent to Chairperson, Audit Committee for Vigil Mechanism on Aug 06, 2024. Although complaints under Vigil Mechanism are to be replied within 06 months but the same is awaited till date.

With respect to PM Plates ‘Bureaugram.com’has gathered that out of the total quantity, about 18,000 Tonne has been sold at Negotiated Price. Total  Benefit given to the firm vis-à-vis traders is about Rs.18 Crore which translates to about 10,000per Tonne. Sales Invoice issued by SAIL reveal that substantial quantity of PM Plates was shipped to GALVANO INDIA PVT LTD; VISHAL PIPES LTD; HMM INFRA LTD; GOODLUCK STEEL TUBES WORKS; APCO INFRATECH P LTD; ASHOKA BUILDCON LTD; RCC DEVELOPERS LTD; NKG INFRASTRUCTURE LTD etc. who were existing customers of SAIL.

Based on the timelines of sales of PM Plates, sources say that the following sales officials could be involved in the approval process: 

Bhupender Singh : Product Executive for PM Plates at Ghaziabad Branch; Anuraag Dubey : Branch Manager,Ghaziabad Branch; Sanchit Soni: Regional Business Manager (Flat Products), Northern Region;V Suresh: Regional Manager, Northern Region; Abhijeet Kumar: Regional Manager, Northern Region; Niroj Kumar Sharma: Product Manager for PM Plates at HQ; V S Chakravarty : Chief General Manager (Flat Products), HQ;Sanjay Agarwal : Chief General Manager (Flat Products), HQ and Mahesh Chand Agarwal : Executive Director (Sales & ITD),HQ. The Agarwals went on to become samdhis formally.

Venkatesh Infra Projects P Ltd came in to existence on Oct 12, 2020 and within 8 days SAIL officials went on to sign Project MOU with the firm on Oct 20, 2020 for supplying 1,50,000 Tonne of steel for a period of one year i.e. from Oct 20, 2020  to Oct 19, 2021 which was to be utilised by the firm in various projects and construction works being undertaken by them. Before enteringProject MOU, SAIL officials did not ask a simple and basic  question from the firm that within 8 days of formation from where they got such large projects which can consume 1,50,000 Tonne of steel in their construction work.Please note that 1,50,000 Tonne is lot of steel !!

The Project MOU signed with the firm has two provisions (a) Annual MoU booking quantity can be reduced upto 90% of the original booking quantity at the option of the customer. (b) For the consideration of successful completion of MOU and passage of Turnover Discount(TOD) in case SAIL is not able to supply the material against accepted orders of the customer during the last month of the MoU period, the back log may be considered by SAIL for servicing till the end of the following month.

Though all kinds of heavy discounts were given by SAIL officials,till July 2021, Venkatesh Infra Projects P Ltd could lift only about 77,000 Tonne of steel products against the Project MOU of original quantity of 1,50,000 Tonne. To successfully complete the PROJECT MOU and to become eligible for TOD payment @Rs 300 per tonne , the firm had to lift about 73,000 Tonne  in the next 80 days i.e. till Oct 19, 2021. This was a herculean task for a firm which was not doing any project. Moreover, it required an amount of  Rs 400 to 450  Croresto lift the balance quantity.

SAIL gives its Key Accounts to Venkatesh

SAIL routesHot Rolled Coils through Venkatesh to give additional benefit of Rs 4 Crores

To reduce the burden, apart from reducing the quantity of the Project MOU to 1,35000 Tonne, they started looking for options where large quantities could be lifted from SAIL and sold to somebody on advance payment. Since Hot Rolled Coilsis one such product, the firm turned to it from the month of Aug’2021. SAIL also entertained the request of the firm and end up supplying about 14,000 Tonne of Hot Rolled Coils to them in three months i.e. Aug2021, Sep 2021,and Nov2021. Sales Invoice issued by SAIL reveal that all these Hot Rolled Coils were sold by Kolkata Branch of CMO-SAIL and were shipped to JINDAL (INDIA) LIMITED and UTKARSH INDIA LIMITED, who both were/are long-standing Key Accounts of SAIL.

Sources reveal that above could be termed as a joint conspiracy hatched against SAIL by the chain of following officers - Shailender Kumar : Branch Manager, Kolkata; Abheek Kanti Mullick : Key Account Manager, Kolkata; Preeti : Regional Business Manager (Flat Products), Eastern Region; Munish Ahuja : Regional Manager, Eastern Region; Manbendra Chaudhary : Product Manager for Hot Rolled Coils at HQ; Sanjay Agarwal : Chief General Manager (Flat Products), HQ and Mahesh Chand Agarwal : Executive Director (Sales & ITD),HQ.The Agarwals went on to become samdhis formally.

As the MOU was signed by the Ghaziabad Branch of Northern Region CMO-SAIL. The payment of TOD of Rs 4.05 crores was also released by them. Key officers involved in releasing the payment were Anuraag Dubey : Branch Manager, Ghaziabad,and Pankuj Agrawal : Finance In-charge Ghaziabad Branch. During the supply of Hot Rolled Coils and release of TOD amount, Sanchit Soni and Abhijeet Kumar were the Regional Business Manager (Flat Products) and Regional Manager of Northern Region.

The preliminary investigation report of CVO-SAIL in complaint 73 of 2023 (pertaining to TMT Bars only) also confirms that against the reduced MOU quantity of 1,35,000 Tonne, the final offtake of Venkatesh Infra Projects P Ltd was 1,35,022.17 Tonne till Nov 30, 2021 and not till Nov 19, 2021.

The moment 3,000 Tonne is subtracted from 1,35,022.17 Tonne, offtake of the firm during Oct 20, 2020  to Nov 19, 2021 (i.e. MOU period plus one month extension period) falls below the reduced MOU quantity of 1,35,000 Tonne resulting in MOU failure and ineligible for payment of TOD of Rs 4.05 crores.

Sources confirm that till date neither recovery of the above amount has not been done from Venkatesh Infra Projects P Ltd nor anyone’s reasonability has been fixed in SAIL.

(The above article has been written based on inputs from various sources including sources from SAIL)

Click on the link below to read the other article on Venkatesh Infra Projects P Ltd

https://www.bureaugram.com/news/agarwals-agarwals-and-sail-officials-a-noticeable-nexus