Leaked Essar emails show an ecosystem of beneficiaries grew around company’s operations in Bastar

Arun Kant Shukla

The correspondence reveals a vivid picture of how corporations act in mineral-rich areas.

A journalist wrangling a transport contract. A Congress leader getting free business for releasing scripted statements. A senior police officer extracting corporate social responsibility funds for students known to him. A bureaucrat requisitioning a free long-distance cab ride.

These references to Chhattisgarh in the email correspondence of Essar Group officials, leaked by a whistleblower, and now part of a Supreme Court PIL, might stand eclipsed by the high-profile headlines of Rural Development Minister Nitin Gadkari cruising on an Essar-owned yacht in Europe, and by the news of senior journalists in Delhi confessing to taking free cab rides and tendering their resignations.

But on both moral and political grounds, they are no less significant.

They add texture to what is known of conflict-ridden Bastar, the southern region of Chhattisgarh, where mineral wealth has drawn corporations like Essar to the lands of adivasis. While the tribal communities stand impoverished by the loss of their lands, and brutalised by the ensuing strife between Maoist rebels and the state forces, the entry of corporations has created an ecosystem of beneficiaries.

Since Essar has not denied the content of the emails, Scroll took a detailed look at the alleged beneficiaries of the company’s largesse in Chhattisgarh, as revealed in the correspondence. First, a quick backgrounder to the company’s operations in the state.

Essar in Chhattisgarh

For nearly a decade, Essar Steel has striven to gain access to an iron ore mine in the district of Dantewada. In 2005, it signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the government of Chhattisgarh to set up a steel making plant in Bastar. The state assured it of access to iron ore through a mining lease.

While the mining lease and the steel plant are yet to materialise, the company continues to operate out of Dantewada district. It buys discarded iron-ore fines at discounted rates from the government company National Mineral Development Corporation.

For years, the fines were mixed with water and the slurry was flushed down a 267-kilometre-long pipeline, which passed through Odisha, and ended at Vishakapatnam on the coast of Andhra Pradesh, where the company has a plant which converts the ore into pellets, used further to make steel. While transporting the ore by road or rail would have cost Rs 550 per tonne, the pipeline slashed the costs to just Rs 80 per tonne.

Except, this pipeline ran through Maoist-dominated lands. Many believed it could not have been built without a substantial payoff to the rebels. In 2009, the pipeline was damaged by the Maoists. It was rumoured that the Maoists had struck because of held-up payments. The company has repeatedly denied paying the rebels.

In 2011, however, a leaked US diplomatic cable quoted an unnamed Essar official stating that “the company pays the Maoists ‘a significant amount’ not to harm or interfere with their operations”. Months later, a civil works contractor of the company, BK Lala, was arrested by the Dantewada police while allegedly delivering payments to the Maoists.

The company said that the contractor was not acting on its instructions. Lala has subsequently turned police approver in the case.

The Congress leader

To pre-empt possible damage from Lala’s disclosures, the leaked emails show, Essar turned to Awadesh Gautam, a Congress leader who is a prominent building contractor in Dantewada district. A thakur from Uttar Pradesh, Gautam represents the powerful north Indian migrants who have monopolised key contracts and businesses in Dantewada. Gautam’s activities have earned the ire of the Maoists. His house came under attack in 2010. He escaped but a relative and employee were killed.

The emails mention Gautam more than once. On June 12, 2012, Essar’s Senior Vice-President Rajamani Krishnamurti wrote to his colleagues:

“I spoke to Avadesh Gautam who is from Congress from Dantewada/Kirandul and requested his support in making press statements against Lala on his extortion tactics. He said he would help in getting the statements issued through the Bastar and Kirandul Nagar Palika presidents respectively. However, he wanted the draft statements from us in Hindi that we intend to get on the press. The statement should include that the CG govt signed large number of MoUs for industrial investments keeping in mind the mineral resources of Bastar region and people like Lala would spoil the investment climate through his blackmailing tactics. Also include Lal’s exponential growth in the region…from rags to rich etc…”

In another email sent on June 7, Krishnamurti mentioned that Gautam had been obliged with “a small quantity of business”.

Scroll made several attempts to speak with Gautam but he did not respond to calls. Bhupesh Baghel, the head of the state Congress unit, said that Gautam was an “ordinary worker” and not an “office-bearer” in the party. “I’m hearing about these allegations from you,” he said. “I do not know anything about this.”

The journalist

Along with Gautam, the email correspondence of June 7 mentions Dev Sharan Tiwari, the bureau chief of the Hindi newspaper Deshbandhu in Jagdalpur, the largest town of Bastar.

In Delhi, two editors of Mail Today and Hindustan Times lost their jobs in the furore over free cab rides from Essar. But in Chhattisgarh, Tiwari allegedly wrangled a full transport contract for himself.

In the email, Krishnamurti reports on the meeting that he and other colleagues had with Tiwari:

“Mr Tiwari had certain issues about he being discriminated and bypassed in contracts for last two years. He is an influential journalist and can be a big help to us in terms of information and opinion building, if we can encash him to our advantage and at the same time will be great nuisance value if we ignore him.”

Tiwari's influence does not come from the paper he represents –Deshbandhu is an old, reputed regional paper, but in recent decades, it has lost circulation to rivals. Instead, Tiwari draws his clout from his brother, Vidya Sharan Tiwari, who is the district president of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

In their meeting with him, the official reports, Tiwari brought to their attention possible trouble over the legal status of land acquired for the company’s operations and offered to “help set the records properly”. He allegedly pointed them to 500 hectares of land available for industry, and promised to be Essar’s “eyes and ears” in the region.

For his help, the company gave him a transportation contract, a subsequent email in November states.

While Krishnamurti relied on Tiwari’s information, another official expressed unhappiness with his false alerts: in one instance, Tiwari incorrectly reported a possible administrative notice of Rs 70 crore for violating township norms and boasted that he had convinced Congress leaders to not “rake up this issue”.

Speaking with Scroll, Tiwari denied taking contracts from Essar. “I used to meet the PR officials when they would visit,” he said. “But I did not take any business from them.” When asked if he had a transport business, he said he used to have one, but it folded up many years ago.

The Editor-in-Chief of Deshbandhu, Lalit Surjan, expressed shock at the allegations. “This is news to me. I’m hearing about this from you,” he said. “Dev Sharan Tiwari has been a very good correspondent. At the time of the Essar case [over alleged payments to Maoists], he did objective reporting. Since our newspaper has limited resources, and we cannot afford to recruit full-time high-salaried journalists at all places, we do not see anything wrong if our journalists solicit advertisements for the paper, for which they earn commissions above their salaries. But we do not allow them to accept contracts for their businesses.”

The civil servant

In an email on December 2, 2012, Varsha Jha, the Raipur-based Deputy General Manager, Community Relations & Media, reported to her Essar bosses in Delhi about a meeting with Durgesh Chandra Mishra, the Commissioner of Bastar and the seniormost representative of the state administration in the region. The agenda of the meeting was to discuss the deployment of the company’s corporate social responsibility funds, but the Commissioner had an unrelated request:

“He’s going Delhi for MHA’s some training program from 9th to 17th dec. He’s requesting for accommodation and local cab in Delhi. I’ve told him politely sir our guest house is full during said period so can’t arrange accommodation but for local cab I’ll speak to my seniors.”

“Ok for an Indica or Swift,” the Essar official in Delhi wrote back. “Swift is better,” replied the Raipur official.

Six days later, she followed up with another email:

“Just received call from Commissioner Bastar D C Mishra he said Chhattisgarh Bhavan is arranging his cab and accommodation for his training. He’s two days of training session so he want to go Datia (close to Gwalior 480 kms from Delhi ) for goddess durga’s puja darshan. He’s requested for one INOVA cab from 14th Dec early morning to 15th night (he’ll stay 14th night in Datia and will be back to Delhi on 15th eve).”

As a postscript, Jha added, “If possible please try to meet him in Delhi. According to sources, he may become industry secretary.”

DC Mishra did not become the industry secretary of Chhattisgarh. His last posting has been as Director, Tribal Research and Training Institute in Raipur. Repeated calls and messages to his number went unanswered.

A senior bureaucrat in the state, speaking on condition of anonymity, sought to make light of the charges against Mishra. “He might have paid for the car, who knows?” he said. “And what’s the big deal in taking a car for a 2-3 hour journey? Maybe he just asked the company to arrange a car since he was travelling with family?”

The police officer

In an email on July 2013, Narendra Bhaduaria, Advisor, Corporate Affairs, wrote about his visit to Raipur, where he was invited for tea by Giridhari Nayak, the Director General of police:

“Mr Nayak has been recently promoted as DGP and posted as DGP (Jail). During the meeting he has demanded some financial help (2.00 L) from us for sponsoring 6 students of National law University, Raipur. It is possible that he may be posted as regular DGP after retirement of present DGP Mr Ramnivas after 6 months. Although I have not promised anything and told that I will pass on message to our organisation. The support has to be given in this week only. In my opinion we should help. I am sure, he will be helpful for us in future.”

Krishnamurti replied, “We should do this, as he is going to be the DGP, Chattisgarh from January 2014 and has more than 7 years of service with him. Make it a CSR activity.”

Deepak Arora, the CEO of Essar Group Foundation, the company’s CSR arm, responded, “Sure. Let me check how much money we have in foundation.”

Meant to contribute to the area and people affected by the company’s operations, the ease with which corporate social responsibility funds were sanctioned on the individual request of a police officer in distant Raipur, stands in sharp contrast to the difficulties that two district administrators claim to have faced in getting the company to participate in large development projects in Dantewada. The claims were made in conversations with this correspondent in 2012.

DGP Giridhari Nayak, however, denied that he had made any demands from the company. “Never in my official term have I interacted with Essar officials,” he said. “What does Essar have to do with jails?”

Keeping people in the dark

The more significant reference to the police in the Essar Leaks, however, related to neighbouring Andhra Pradesh. In October 2013, Essar officials claimed to have met VC Sajjanar, the Director General (Special Intelligence) to discuss the possibility of getting armed protection to repair the pipeline – the one that originated in Chhattisgarh, passed through Odisha, and ended in Andhra Pradesh.

Sajjanar expressed his inability to provide round-the-clock security for the repair of the pipeline, and pointed out that the Central Reserve Police Force, or the central paramilitary force, could not be deployed on “payment basis for a corporate entity”. Another reason for not being able to provide security, he said, was the “non availability of alternate access to the disputed site”. But he offered a solution:

“He was wondering if we could help them lay an alternative road for about a stretch of 16-20 kms as a CSR activity. He would then deploy armed CRPF on those critical locations. We need not have to pay for the deployment then. It would be a one time expenditure which would be around Rs 12-15 cr. Moreover, he said we would make this as an initiative of the government without exposing our name.”

If true, this only lends credence to the view that the state governments and corporations act in concert in mineral-rich areas, keeping adivasi populations in the dark, eroding trust further, and exacerbating armed conflict.

“It is not business as usual,” said Sudha Bharadwaj, a Chhattisgarh based lawyer who is an activist with the People’s Union for Civil Liberties. “It is business out of the ordinary

छत्तीसगढ के लोग - The People of Chhattisgarh

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Thursday, March 5, 2015