With the selection of Dr Panda as CMD SAIL, whether his actions will be irrespective of caste, creed, religion, sex, statehood etc. or he will also follow the nepotic footsteps of his predecessor who before resigning, curtailing his tenure by over two years, promoted the interests of his alumni colleagues from BIT Sindri.

All 3,300 Tonne sold after LOKPAL’s Order dated Jan 10, 2024 – Did senior management not sensitise the field officers or the officers are out of control of helpless management? Why Behera does not listen?

Rs 6,000 per tonne extra discount for FAKE Project. More than Venkatesh!

With coming of an Odiya CMD, will Behera from Odisha be removed from the sensitive post of RM-ER or promoted to ED also. Will the Punjabi Whistle Blower Bhatia continue to suffer?

When Behera required HRA at Kolkata, he got the policy changed. Why did he not walk the same path for sales to Projects?

Odiya officer approves extremely low prices for Odisha based FAKE Project

Shree Balaji Enterprises is registered with GSTIN as 21ARIPA0530C1ZX with nature of Core Business Activityas “Trader – Retailer” It is a proprietership firm with Ankit Agrawal as its proprieter.

LOKPAL order dumped by compromised SAIL officials: An open challenge to LOKPAL & law of the land

Corporate Governance also dumped: Functional Directors Compromised; Ministry of Steel, Government & Independent Directors kept eyes & ears closed

Sources reveal that starting Jan 2024, about 3,300 Tonne of TMT Bars have been sold to Shree Balaji Enterprises as FAKE Project giving a blow of over ₹ 2.0 CR to SAIL exchequer. The extra discount given to the FAKE Project firm over and above the SAIL’s Odisha Distributor LN Associates P Ltd works out to about ₹ 6,000 per tonne.

The supplies to Shree Balaji Enterprises began in Jan 2024 when Munish Ahuja was the Regional Manager of Eastern Region but sales accelerated only when A K Behera took over as RM-ER in Aug 2024. Out of the total quantity, about 2,300 Tonne was sold by Shree Balaji Enterprises to Shree Balaji Engicons Ltd for its work at Korba, Chhattisgarh and the TMT Bars were supplied on Direct Despatch by Road from the Bhilai Steel Plant. It may be noted that  Korba comes under the jurisdiction of Bhilai branch of the Western Region of SAIL CMO. It happened only after Behera joined as RM-ER.

Why were the prices negotiated / approved by the Regional manager of the Eastern Region? Was the firm belonging to Odisha more comfortable with an Oriya officer A K Behera who had earlier worked at Bhubaneshwar also?

₹ 6,000 is hell of a discount in the steel trading business!

This again and again brings us to the moot question that when both Shree Balaji Enterprises and SAIL’s Odisha Distributor LN Associates P Ltd had to sell the TMT Bars in the same market and the distributor was also doing it nicely, then why additional discount of ₹ 6,000 per tonne was passed to the FAKE Project : Shree Balaji Enterprises. Was the amount distributed between the firm and SAIL officials?

Pursuant to the order dated 10.01.2024 of LOKPAL of India where SAIL was directed to formulate a clear and unambiguous policy with regard to MOU, pricing and relaxation, some new policy / guidelines were brought by SAIL vide memo Ref No- S-2(4)/ED-Committee/2024-25 dated 08.04.2024). The above sales happened despite the new guidelines. Sources say Behera does not listen at all?

Under the new guidelines, it was specifically instructed to verify the GSTIN. When GSTIN -21ARIPA0530C1ZX of Shree Balaji Enterprises had specifically mentioned that its nature of Core Business Activity is “Trader – Retailer”, then why TMT Bars were sold to the firm as Project at negotiated prices that too by giving a huge extra discount of ₹ 6,000 per tonne. As per sources, this discount is way more than the average discount (₹ 4,500 per tonne) passed to Venkatesh Infra Projects P Ltd on TMT Bars.

Editor's Take:

Guidelines or no guidelines, it is an extremely well established fact that the discounts illegally passed to FAKE PROJECTS by the Regional Managers could have been passed only to the GENUINE PROJECTS. Therefore, it is the moral and professional duty & responsibility of the SAIL officials, more so of those who occupy high chairs & draw huge salaries along with associated benefits and perks, that discounts meant for Projects must be given to GENUINE PROJECTS only. For that, whatever due-diligence is required must be done. When Bureaugram.com can dig so many things from the Google search, what stopped Behera and others to do so? Why SAIL officials compromised on the moral and professional duty & responsibility? What they got in return?

First circular on Projects was issued in SAIL in the year 2000 which means SAIL officials are dealing with Projects and Project Pricing for the last 25 years. The Projects scam began a big way in 2019 only and sales to FAKE Projects increased exponentially during the regime of M C Agarwal as ED(Sales & ITD).  Till these sales were going well and the SAIL officials were reaping the benefits of shared extra discounts, no one thought that one day a Whistle Blower would come and uncover the scam. After being caught, SAIL officials had no defence except for their own interpretation of the guidelines and hiding behind those eccentric, ridiculous, ludicrous, absurd, laughable & preposterous interpretations.

It has been gathered that when Behera required HRA at Kolkata, he got the policy changed from the then CGM(P&A) of CMO Bijaya Mishra. Why did he not walk the same path for sales to Projects? Personal benefits are primary; SAIL can go to the docks!

Here it may be mentioned that the existing guidelines were sufficient enough to take care of the project sales had the intentions of the SAIL officials been ethical, moral, and honest. Refer our story SAIL PROJECT SCAM: A case of ‘Blatant Compromise’

https://www.bureaugram.com/news/sail-project-scam-a-case-of-blatant-compromise

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