Virbhadra’s wife got Rs 60L loan before govt accorded extension to firm

SHIMLA/CHANDIGARH: Even as pressure is mounting on Virbhadra Singh to resign over allegations of Rs 2.4 crore graft for favouring a hydro power firm, a TOI investigation has revealed that the embattled Himachal chief minister's MP wife Pratibha Singh was given an unsecured loan of Rs 60 lakh in February this year by the same promoter -Venture Energy & Technologies Pvt Ltd -just 33 days before the last extension given to the company to start construction work in the state was to expire.

The firm is to build a 15 MW power plant in Sai Kothi in Chamba district in HP.

The September 4, 2013 state cabinet note, a copy of which is in possession of TOI, revealed that the hydro-electric firm was accorded a special extension approval for a period of 10 months by the Virbhadra government, which came to power in December 2012.

The fourth and last extension given to the company was to expire in March 2013. It had been given three extensions earlier to start between 2002 and 2012, along with penalties imposed.

Just five months before this special extension, the promoter of the firm, Vakamulla Chander Shekhar, transferred Rs 60 lakh into Pratibha Singh's ICICI Bank account on February 27. TOI is in possession of bank transactions between Chander Shekhar's Karur Vysya Bank and ICICI Bank.

Pratibha, who was fielded as a candidate for Lok Sabha bypolls in Mandi in June, did not declare this money in her assets in her nomination papers. She had though mentioned the previous such unsecured loan, amounting to Rs 1.5 crore, taken from Chander Shekhar in November 2011.

TOI is also in possession of another cabinet note, according to which Venture Energies Technologies' MoU was first cancelled by the Virbhadra government in 2004 as the company was found violating norms of a foreign direct investment by both Union power ministry and the state government.

The Virbhadra government, however, went ahead and renewed the MoU within four months.

TIMELINE:

Jun 2002: Venture Energy & Technologies wins 17 MW project in HP from

among 33 other bidders during Dhumal govt

Dec 2002: Show cause notice to firm for procedural violations

Sept 2004: Virbhadra govt terminates MoU for FDI violations

Feb 2005: CM Virbhadra re-initates MoU with firm

May 2009: CM Virbhadra becomes Union minister

Nov 2011: Firm promoter Vakamulla deposits Rs 2.4 cr into Virbhadra's account &

Rs 1.5 cr into Virbhadra's wife Pratibha's account

Feb 2013: Vakamulla deposits Rs 60L into Pratibha's account

May 2013: Vakamulla deposits Rs 1.2cr into Virbhadra's account

Sept 2013: Virbhadra gives special extension to firm