Scammers ‘clone’ Punjab mining dept portal, losses pegged at ₹100 cr
The state mining department has unearthed a fraud wherein scammers ‘cloned’ the official website and used it to generate passes for the mining vehicles, causing a loss to the state exchequer
Chandigarh : The state mining department has unearthed a fraud wherein scammers ‘cloned’ the official website and used it to generate passes for the mining vehicles, causing a loss to the state exchequer.
An FIR under Sections 303 (2) (theft), 318 (4) (cheating), 336 (2) (forgery), 336 (3) (commits forgery, intending that the document or electronic record forged shall be used for the purpose of cheating), 338 (forging a document which purports to be valuable security), 340 (2) (fraudulently or dishonestly uses as genuine any document or electronic record), 61(2) (criminal conspiracy) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and Section 21 of the Mines and Minerals Act 1957 has been registered at the Shahkot police station on January 6, when “fake” documents were first detected by field staff of the mining department. The investigation is being conducted by Jalandhar rural police.
In a January 14 letter, chief engineer (mining) Harinderpal Singh Bedi apprised principal secretary, water resources, Krishan Kumar, and secretary home, Gurkirat Kirpal Singh, who also holds the charge of secretary (mining), about the alleged scam.
Following this, the home secretary last week shot off a letter (seen by HT) to director general of police (DGP) to get the matter investigated by the cyber crime wing of the police.
Bedi alleged that the scam to the tune of ₹100 crore involved the creation of clone websites to generate passes for mining vehicles.
Bedi’s letter further stated that the scam has been ongoing since 2020 and the fraudulent websites were hosted on servers in Singapore and used to generate fake vehicle passes for sand and gravel-loaded vehicles, causing loss to state exchequer by not depositing the mining fee.
“The scam was orchestrated by a network of individuals who created multiple clone websites mimicking the official mining department portals. The passes issued to these vehicles allowed them to transport minerals without proper documentation and oversight. Apart from causing significant financial losses to the state exchequer, it has compromised the integrity of the mining sector,” Bedi’s letter added.
“As per the initial estimates the losses can be pegged at ₹100 crore or more”, the letter further added.
The letter also sought a probe into the role of the executive engineer mining department, head office, SDO mining at Headquarter, consultants Kamal Chalotra and Gurjit Singh as the scammers managed to get hold of T-forms, Q-forms and QR Codes (official government forms) which were used to generate passes.
Bedi also sought a probe into the role of the SDO, who was in charge of developing the portal since 2021.
“It’s the tip of an iceberg. There are eight such websites. Once a vehicle pass was generated from the Punjab government website, it was cloned through fake websites. When field officials scanned it, the cloned website would open showing it as genuine. By this mean, the mafia was using 10 trucks on one vehicle pass to transport minerals and causing loss of revenue to Punjab government”, said a mining department official, pleading anonymity.