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Friday, October 21, 2011

Hidden Reality : COINCIDANCES, TOO MANY

Hidden Reality : COINCIDANCES, TOO MANY
Wednesday, 05 October 2011 00:38




"Articles By Whistleblower & Activist Ravi Srivastava on dirty oil industry and ssues which give us the hidden harsh reality and force us to think more than just normal . We are thankful to him for sharing articles with us . "ETA

February 2006 UPA I was half way through of their 5 year tenure ,told its fund raisers to fill the coffers swiftly since Elections were approaching, the money spinners of the party likes of Vilas Rao Deshmukh , Ahmed Patel , Murli Deora were assigned the specific roles ,which they have been successfully playing over decades for the Party.

Ministry of Petroleum is one such milch cow for every ruling party Adulteration, Benami Retail outlets , contracts for exploration generate huge black money which is channeled up to Minister& Ministry, till Jan 2006 Ministry was headed by a “spoke in the wheel’ Mani Shankar Aiyar a Top Bureaucrat of yesteryears known for his straight forwardness and fond of calling spade- a- spade, he received sudden marching orders High Command to Panchayati Raj a Non descript Ministry .

Murli deora a known polyester yarn broker fromMumbai and ‘cutting Chai” partner of Industry doyen Late Shri Dhiru bhai Ambani was installed as Petroleum Minister. He was an old guard of congress party but a low key operator since Rajiv Gandhi days and a loving ‘unclejee’ to Anil& Mukesh Ambani. Ambani’s are loved equally by Congress & BJP for their deep pockets and responsible for their rise & rise in India’s industrial map .The specific task cut for Deora was to raise funds at least 1000 Cr from the infamous Business houses for forthcoming Elections.



Deora started with a launch of a fuel marker for checking adulteration, such futile attempts are made by Govt. occasionally to fool & hoodwink the public at large pretending that Govt. is really serious to curb adulteration. In fact adulteration is a real money spinner and Rs. 15000 crore annual racket of oil company/Ministry officials .PDS kerosene destined for poor public is siphoned off in the market for mixing with Petrol and diesel due to substantial delta in price of kerosene vs.Motor fuels , Govt.s own agency NCEAR has admitted in their report that 38% of PDS Kerosene is diverted for mixing in connivance with Transporters/Dealers and unscrupulous State/Central Govt. officials. In the guise of checking adulteration a Rs. 200 cr. Order for a Marker was placed on M/S SGS(Recently being awarded a contract for Roads Audit by Maharashtra Govt.) an Indian agent of Authentix a British company, who were handpicked for shipping Marker into India .SGS started extortion since they were mandated by MOP&NG for checking adulteration on Petrol Pumps, 2 officials of HPCL made a complaint to CBI Mumbai in May 2008 , followed by a PIL in Hon. Mumbai High court, who ordered CBI enquiry in Oct 2008, coincidentally the said Marker was withdrawn by Deora within 2 months i.e w.e.f 1.1.2009,and Rs200 cr. Of tax payers money went down the drain without any control or reduction of rampant adulteration.



Real stakes were in RIL-RNRL case where Hon Mumbai High court ordered in favor of junior Ambani and upheld PSC(Product sharing contract)at the contracted price of Natural Gas $2.8mmscnd, elder Ambani approached the Apex court , suddenly Govt. Realized that natural Gas is a National Asset and not brothers property alone (Govt. did not know it for many years when case was in Mumbai High court) and became an intervener in the case .MOP&NG filed an affidavit in Apex court in july 2009 supporting elder Ambani’s claim. In the meantime Elections concluded and appropriately funded UPAII came into existence. Deora was quickly reinstalled as Petroleum Minister since it was a payback time for funds collected , coincidently the EGOM comprising of Deora, Shinde, Pranab also approved the price of Natural gas at $ 4.2 mmscnd, which was 150% of original price of $2.8mmscnd , such enhanced price was to benefit RIL , by Rs. 30000 cr. in next 5 years, for justification DGH ( Director General of Hydrocarbons)V.K.Sibbal’s approval for GOLD PLATING of Reliance’s capital expenditure from original estimate of Rs. 8000 cr enhanced to Rs. 44,000 cr was accepted .Sibbal was removed in Oct 2009 after enquiry into his daughter accepting white goods from Reliance officials (intercepted emails) and a Flat .There were heated allegations of serious irregularities by Junior Ambani against MOP&NG in 2009, published on the front page of Economic Times.



By an extended coincidence K.G.Balakrishnan the CJ of Apex court pronounced judgment in favor of elder Amabni and approved the price of $4.2 mmscnd within 5 days after order he was appointed as NHRC Chairman (cabinet Rank)w.e.f 11.5.2010 immediately after his superannuation

Last but not the least coincidence is that Deora has been removed as Petroleum Minister in Jan 2011and from the cabinet in july this year, for consolation his son made an insignificant Mos for retaining a roof in Delhi and to prevent his marginalization in Politics. Then Petroleum secy,Joint Secretaries have been shunted to non descript Ministries Sibbal facing CBI charge sheet in approving enhanced capex.CAG has filed a scathing report against misdeeds of Deora and his cronies in KG Basin case .K.G.Balakrishnan is facing enquiries of manipulation in Land deals by his kins and relatives, Reliance’s Natural Gas production has reduced to half then projected and its share price plummeted more the 25% till last month.



Ravi Srivastava





"To Know his battle against false Please Follow Tale of Two Whistleblower of HPCL"



Previous Articles : THE MARK(ER) OF A SCAM-RS.200 cr. FRAUD BY MOP&NG , PUBLIC FUNDING OF A PRIVATE AIRLINE





About Author


Whistleblower , Activist & Indian Against Corruption active volunteer .

I R.P.SRIVASTAVA, 56 year old ,male Graduated in Science and Chemical Technology in the year 1975, after an stint of 1 year at Eicher Tractors and 6 years in Kansai Nerolac(erstwhile Goodlass Nerolac), I joined HPCL in 1982 as an Operations Officer in Grade ‘A’.

"I am a crusader against corruption , corruption which destroyed my life exposed Rs. 200 cr. corruption in Petroleum industry Marker system invited the wrath of Murli Deora his sychphant beaurocrats , chairman of the company who promptly dismissed me from service to appease their boss"

Please Read " Tale of Two Whistleblower of HPCL to know more.....

R. P. Srivastava
ravi4354@gmail.com
304, AUM SAI Sector-7
Kharghar, Navi Mumbai 410210
Mob- 09820183924 L/L 02227744012
India Against corruption Activist and Volunteer from Navi Mumbai
My Blog http://raviprakash4354.blogspot.com
Contact Me if you want to join me in the fight .Because people support can make huge difference .

Hidden Reality : CORRUPTION WATCHDOG 3 C’s

Hidden Reality : CORRUPTION WATCHDOG 3 C’s
Home More Articles Hidden Reality : CORRUPTION WATCHDOG 3 C’s
Hidden Reality : CORRUPTION WATCHDOG 3 C’s
Friday, 14 October 2011 21:22

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"Articles By Whistleblower & Activist Ravi Srivastava on dirty oil industry and ssues which give us thehidden harsh reality and force us to think more than just normal . We are thankful to him for sharing articles with us . "ETA

"CAG is a classic example that how a defunct body can redeem itself , for 5o years CAG was an ordinary Govt. Auditor, whose job is to keep an eye on utilization of Public exchequer by Public Authorities .They normally station their Auditors in Govt. companies as Resident/Govt. Auditor and have office in company’s corporate offices only. Lakhs of pages of report gather dust since the job of agency is to discover, examine the misuse of Public money and report to Govt. who will in turn hand it over to various standing committees of Parliamentarians who make visit to Public sector undertakings , stay in 5 star hotels at Hill stations or Beach resorts on account of Public sector undertakings only along with their spouses sometimes .Finally no action on such voluminous reports are taken and destines to archives"

Team Anna’s Jan lok pal bill which has become a bone of contention between the Government and Civil society had approximately 13 issues of mismatch , out of which one contentious issue is to make the CVC, CBI&CAG independent , perception is that Government is scared of passing too much of Powers to the Jan Lok Pal and intends to dilute the provisions of the Bill in such a manner that even if a Public Servant is caught enough escape route is made available to defend himself .

The fear in the minds of Politicians, Babu’s is that in the very first tenure of 2 years of installing Jan Lok pal , more then half of the Ministers and similar proportion of Babu’s will be either sacked or land in Jail.



Subsequent paras will deal with the 3 dreaded C’s of Govt. feared by Public servants and how effectively these are managed and compromised so that they remain unscathed. These 3 are Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), Central Bureau of investigation(CBI) and Central Vigilance Commission(CVC), all 3 have constitutionally appointed heads chosen by the PM, Leader of Opposition , HM from serving or superannuated Babu’s including IRS, IPS officers, by virtue of their inherent love , affection , empathy for their brethren , even if a case is made, it is diluted in such a way that the Elevation , posting , assignment and benefits of the serving bureaucrat remain unaffected/protected, take the example of Thomas who was appointed CVC despite Charge sheet against him and finally Apex court had to null his appointment.

Modus operandi for such appointments is suppose a CPSU(Central Public Sector Undertaking) Director aspiring to become Chairman and having a case against him , he will swiftly depute a company official (All oustation based CPSUs have a Delhi Coordination office)to keep a close liaison with CVC , such officers are almost Dalal’s/Fixers in the capital for respective CPSU’s/Deptt, his file is tracked on day to day basis, such coordination offices have agents in the guise of consultants in the parliament, Ministry , CBI and have crores of Rupees of Unaudited Budget at their disposal, such agents ensure that the pending case is closed before, CVC nod for appointment is given. Such clearances are also essential before releasing Pension, Benefits of retiring PSU Board level executives or their elevation in the Organization.

CVC though called a ‘Watchdog’ and has even superintending powers over CBI , factually it is not even Stray/street dog , leave aside biting , it does not even bark for a simple reason that it is paid established and controlled by the same Govt, whose servants it has to Act against, and therefore it has no option but to wag its tail before its masters. Second handicap is its understaffing ,barely 37 officers manning all the crucial departments , CVC appoints more then 250 CVO’s in CPSU’s and Govt. departments like Railways, Income Tax, some of these have Lakhs of employees working in those establishments .CVC officials have admitted that they are not more then a Post Office, which receives the complaint from Public, Employees against Public Servants and in turn forwards it to the same company for investigating and taking action against their own erring officials, In the process if the complainant is a “Whistle blower” from the same Organization his identity and complaint both are fully compromised and he is thrown before the ‘wolves’ of the Organization to have a field day.

CVC’s powers are recommendatory, its recommendations are passed through the concerned Ministry’s vigilance and finally to the Chairman or Deptt. Head who decides whether he concurs with the recommendation or dilutes it e.g if CVC recommends demotion , the deptt will reduce it to stoppage of increments, if CVC recommends termination, he will be suspended and so on.

Departmental CVO’s are a defunct lot, they consider PSU assignment as a “Parking slot” before their next time scale promotion and enjoy all the privileges, perquisites, benefits of the Government company, distinctly recall one Principal Accountant General appointed as CVO of HPCL he was selling his Books to company officials and company was sponsoring his CD’s of Yoga exercises. Such privileges these CVO’s IRS, IPS officers would have never enjoyed in their parent cadres where they will be stuffed in a 2Room flat inDhaula kuan or R.K.Puram in capital e.g once he gets assigned as CVO in Bharat Petroleum Bombay he gets a 4 BHK bunglow with company car, fully Air-conditioned office and Residence, Normally these officers use these postings as “Picnic”, neither they have any attachment with company’s performance nor have any intention to curb prevailing corruption .Such CVO’S confine themselves to mere preaching during Vigilance awareness week (a ritual in the first week of November every year)and quietly move out after completing tenure of 2-3 years.

Another farce is that CVO’s functionally report to CVC but administratively report to Chairman or HOD of the deptt, if any complaint against any company employee is received, CVO takes it to Chairman and bargains for some additional benefit for himself else he threatens the chairman to expose his wrong doings end result remains that “I scratch your back you scratch mine”

If any employee directly reports corruption to CVC /CBI the complaint is forwarded to the respective CVO and in the process his identity is exposed/compromised with the same people against whom he had complained.There is no punishment anywhere in the world for making a complaint but such “thorny’ individual is treated as an “eyesore” in the organization and a threat to a well oiled institutionalized corrupt system prevailing in the very organization .All people in Authority pounce upon him and try to implicate him in some frivolous disciplinary cases with the sole objective of easing him out from the organization in the first available opportunity.

Less said the better about functioning of CBI which is rechristened as Criminal bureau of investigation or congress bureau of Investigation, whose primary function is to “book” the people , who are against the ruling party and “release” or give the “clean chit” to those who belong to ruling party, objective of this agency is not to conclude the case(as far as possible) and drag it indefinitely to facilitate retirement of the guilty Public servant .Apex court has fired the agency hundred of times for their Partisan, enquiries .It has got its own courts, prosecuting machinery but it is a fact that 90% of the cases fall flat in the courts because of shoddy investigation or weak prosecution.

CAG is a classic example that how a defunct body can redeem itself , for 5o years CAG was an ordinary Govt. Auditor, whose job is to keep an eye on utilization of Public exchequer by Public Authorities .They normally station their Auditors in Govt. companies as Resident/Govt. Auditor and have office in company’s corporate offices only. Lakhs of pages of report gather dust since the job of agency is to discover, examine the misuse of Public money and report to Govt. who will in turn hand it over to various standing committees of Parliamentarians who make visit to Public sector undertakings , stay in 5 star hotels at Hill stations or Beach resorts on account of Public sector undertakings only along with their spouses sometimes .Finally no action on such voluminous reports are taken and destines to archives

It is first time since independence that this body has unearthed a Rs. 1.76 Lakh cr. 2G scam, MOP&NG’s RIL’s KG Basin scam(quantum of Public money plundered is yet to be established), nevertheless this agency has at least shown the courage of exposing their masters which must be applauded.

To conclude it is a very legitimate demand from TEAM ANNA that all these 3 agencies must be made to report Jan Lok Pal (CBI’s only Anti corruption wing), the live example is Apex court monitored probe into 2G scam which has sent 16 Ministers, Parliamentarians and corporate honchos behind the bars of Tihar Jail.

Long Live Jan Lok Pal



Ravi Srivastava

HPCL oil refinery: Bombay HC raps government, BMC

HPCL oil refinery: Bombay HC raps government, BMC
Published: Tuesday, Oct 18, 2011, 22:14 IST
By DNA Correspondent | Place: Mumbai | Agency: DNA


The Bombay high court rapped the Maharashtra government and the Brihanmumbai municipal Corporation (BMC) for failing to consider public health and safety concerns around the Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) before granting permission to construct a residential-cum-commercial complex adjoining the refinery.

A division bench of justice PB Majmudar and justice RM Sawant continued the stay on the construction by Oswal Agro Mills Limited, which purchased the factory earlier owned by Union Carbide.

"Government mechanically permitted conversion from industrial zone to commercial zone in which even residential construction are also permitted… Public health and safety should be of paramount importance and should not be made a casualty of by the state government and the (municipal) corporation," observed the bench while asking the BMC, government and the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board to file its reply.

Justice Majmudar further remarked: "The government has not applied its mind before converting the land to commercial zone. It is unfortunate that even after incidents like Bhopal gas tragedy, the government has failed to consider vital aspects of safety and security. If tomorrow some untoward incident takes place who is to take responsibility."

The court was hearing a petition filed by HPCL stating that a residential-cum-commercial project in the vicinity of their refinery not only poses threat to their installations but also the residents would be at risk because of the fumes from their refinery.
Fredun DeVitre, HPCL's counsel, pointed out a report by the Intelligence Bureau stating that post 26/11 terror attacks wherein sea route was used, there was heightened security threat to oil installations.

Priti Purandare, advocate for BMC, argued that they sanctioned the plans of Oswal since the government granted permission as per the amendment in the Development Control Regulations (DCR) and converting the area from I-3 (industrial zone) to commercial zone.

The court observed: "It cannot be of dispute that the refinery is of hazardous activity and untoward incident may occur. Surprisingly the state government did not consider this aspect while modifying the DCR and converting it to commercial zone."

Janak Dwarkadas, counsels for Oswal, argued that they have taken the necessary permission from all the concerned authorities before commencing construction.

"In February, a meeting was called of all the concerned parties, where HPCL was also present. They were given the option of acquiring the plot of Union Carbide too if they considered it to be a threat to their installations. They were to inform within 15 days, however, they never replied," argued Dwarkadas.

As per the DCR a buffer of 500 meters has to be kept from the refinery. HPCL itself has a plot which is not developed. The plot falls between the refinery and the construction by Oswal. "They can leave 500 meters free over there. They can't ask us not to construct in the vicinity," added Dwarkadas.

The court also reprimanded the HPCL for delay on their part for acting on the matter. Justice Majmudar remarked: "You (HPCL) should have taken action then instead your officers waited till construction began. There is no doubt that prima facie your officers are also involved. Officers should have been vigilant."

DeVitre argued that it got sanction to approach the court only in February this year. He added that the chairman of HPCL would look into why officers did not report the matter immediately and would initiate enquiry if required.

The court has directed the government, BMC and MPCB to file their reply by November 15 and kept the petition for hearing on November 21.