New attack on Krishna: ‘Iron ore fines sold at low rates’

Team Anna on Tuesday levelled a fresh charge against External Affairs Minister S M Krishna,alleging that when he was the chief minister of Karnataka,the state mining department allocated thousands of tonnes of iron ore fines to private companies without any bidding and at grossly undervalued rates.

“The iron ore fines which have a market value of over Rs 2,500 per tonne were allocated for Rs 25-Rs 350 per tonne and then private companies who bought them immediately sold them off at the market price causing huge losses to the exchequer,” said Prashant Bhushan.

“The matter was taken up by the Karnataka Lokayukta but it did not have the documents to implicate the chief minister. We now have a letter from the OSD to the CM which shows the chief minister was involved,” he said.

The then Karnataka Lokayukta,Justice Santosh Hegde,who is also a member of the India Against Corruption core committee,said he had not seen the documents. “However I have spoken to Prashant on this and if they do have these documents which were not there when the matter came to the Lokayukta,the charges they are making now are valid,” he said.