B'neswar Club may not bid for mining deal

Stung by the row over its application for iron ore mining leases in Orissa, the state's elite Bhubaneswar Club Ltd is likely to decide on taking back the application next week.

"The management committee of the club will meet soon to take a decision on the future of the mining lease application," Ashok Chinchela, the secretary of the club, told Business Standard. Chinchela is out of the state and is expected to return to Bhubaneswar on July 11.

The management committee meeting would meet sometime after that, he said. Though he did not specify on the application, sources said the club management was likely to rescind the decision.

As some senior bureaucrats are permanent members of the club, the Union Ministry of Personnel has taken a serious view of the matter. "Action could be taken if the bureaucrats were found to have violated the service rules," Satyanand Mishra, secretary, Ministry of Personnel told the media in Delhi.

He, however, clarified that the Centre would act only if the state wrote to it about any violation by the officers.

The club, headed by Priyabrata Patnaik, secretary, state transport and commerce department, is in a soup following disclosure in the Assembly that it was one of the applicants for the Khandadhar mines in Sundergarh district for which South Korean steel major Posco was fighting a pitched battle with Kudremukh Iron Ore Company Ltd.