Reddys' mining company Obulapuram Mining Company grew under Y S Rajasekhara Reddy patronage

HYDERABAD: If you click on Bramhani Steels on the internet, the site will not open. But this wasn't so a year ago. Promoted by Gali Janardhan Reddy, till lately a Karnataka minister who was nabbed by CBI on Monday morning, this proposed steel plant located in Kadapa district of AP was to be set up to initially produce 1.7 million tonnes of steel a year, ramping capacity to 20 million tonnes in few years.

Strangely, this Rs 6,850-crore project was to be established without any bank loans or equity from the public.

Entire funding would come from profits of Obulapuram Mining Corporation' the 77% stakeholder of Bramhani Steels. The remainder of the company is privately owned by Janardhan and associates. This was clearly a phony project but the state without blinking had handed over 10,760 acres of land' an area almost the size of Lutyen's Delhi'to the promoter.

It was also ready to divert 2 tmcs of scarce water from an irrigation dam to run the project' even as Janardhan sought another 4,000 acres to set up a private airport in the area. It was then that fate intervened. Chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy was killed in a helicopter crash on September 2, 2009 and with this the world came crashing down on Janardana.

Had YSR's son Jagan not openly sought his father's office from visiting Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh even while his father's body lay in another room' perhaps Janardana Reddy could have carried on.

But Jagan's rebellion and speculation that Janardana was in partnership with the young scion did him in. Janardhan used to openly say ‘YSR is father to me and Jagan' a brother.'

Soon enough the new state government was after Gali's OMC, which had mining rights in Anantapur district. Though OMC had been allowed to mine ore only for the domestic market' allegations were that the ore was transported in heavily laden trucks to private ports in AP and shipped to China tofeed its massive appetite for steel.

Chandrababu Naidu' who has been crying hoarse about this scandal even in YSR's lifetime' claimed that by 2009' about Rs 6,000 crore of illegally mined iron ore had been exported. The proposed Bramhani projectwasjust a ruse'it was alleged' just a cover to show wheretheorewould goto. “Gali knew that with TDP assiduously pursuing the OMC story' there was only a limit to which the ore could bebrazenly transported out of the country from private ports'” an analyst said.

Inquiries by a SC empowered committee followed one by the new state. Both revealed that OMC had expanded its mining limits from 180 acres to 827 acres. Not only this: it had also moved the markers delineating the state boundary between AP and Karnataka.

The purpose : mining in border Bellary areas with licenses of AP. This was made easy because the mining area was in the middle of a reserve forest. All environmental' forest and mining laws were flouted. On November 17, 2009 AP CM Rosaiah sought a CBI probe into the matter. This is what culminatedin the arrestson Monday.

Will Jagan Mohan be next?

YSR Congress president and Kadapa MP Jagan Mohan Reddy could be next in the CBI net after suspected links to arrested Karnataka BJP leader and mining baron Gali Janardhan Reddy, sources in the agency said.

The sources claimed CBI had been incriminating evidence against ex-AP CM YS Rajasekhara Reddy's son in the assets case that the agency was ordered to probe by the HC. Jagan's arrest could come this week itself as the session of Parliament ends on September 8 and the CBI can avoid seeking permission of the Lok Sabha speaker to arrest him.