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Kolkata: A Performance Audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), covering FY 2017-18 to 2021-22, has found the Mamata Banerjee administration in West Bengal responsible for systematic institutional corruption that dispossessed vulnerable tribal families to unlawfully benefit a private company linked to the illegal coal mining scam. 

The audit details how state machinery facilitated an ecosystem where ancestral tribal holdings were acquired at throwaway prices to enrich private firms like Shakambhari Ispat and Power Limited (SIPL) along with coal conglomerates Eastern Coalfields Limited (ECL) and Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL). SIPL is currently under intense scrutiny by central probe agencies in a multi-crore illegal coal scam at the centre of which is a syndicate tied to alleged money laundering. Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Abhishek Banerjee has been repeatedly questioned in connection to this case.

The CAG report outlines how state land revenue authorities and district Revenue Officers bypassed statutory land ceiling limits under Section 14M of the West Bengal Land Reforms Act. Officials permitted illegal proxy purchases from impoverished tribals, ultimately granting SIPL long-term leases on the acquired land. 

The financial disparities highlighted in the report are stark. SIPL received a Long-Term Settlement for 52.53........

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