3 Balco officials arrested for Korba chimney collapse

R Krishna Das /
Raipur November 18, 2009,

The police have finally arrested top officials of Vedanta Resources charged
with the collapse of an under-construction power unit chimney at Bharat
Aluminium Company (Balco) in September, killing 41 persons

The arrests were made last evening close to the tragedy site at Korba, 225
km from here. Taken into custody were Vice-President and Power Project
Manager Viral Mehta, Assistant General Manager (Projects) Deepak Narang and
graduate trainee engineer Anoop Mahapatra.

The charges are culpable homicide and conspiracy.

With this, four people have been arrested so far in connection with the
deaths. The police had earlier arrested Manoj Sharma, project manager of
Gannon Dunkerley and Company Ltd (GDCL), that had bagged the contract for
the chimney construction.

GDCL had bagged the Rs 60-crore contract to build the chimney at Balco’s
power plant. Shandong Electric Power Construction Corporation, a Chinese
company, was awarded work for setting up the 1,200-Mw plant.

Ratanlal Dangi, Korba’s superintendent of police (SP), told Business
Standard two senior Chinese officials of Sepco had been asked not to leave
Korba. The investigating officials were interrogating them and the two
officials could be arrested if evidence was found in the probe, the district
police chief said.