Guwahati, Thursday, June 16, 2005
CITY
Illegal sandalwood oil producing factory running at Boragaon
By A Staff Reporter
GUWAHATI, June 15? The Bureau of Investigation of Economic Offences (BIEO) of the Assam Police has detected a sandalwood oil producing factory, which was running without proper documents in the Boragaon area of the city for the last few months.
Acting on a tip-off, officials of the Bureau raided the factory and found that it was functioning for months without valid documents and produced sandalwood oil worth crores of rupees in the last few months. Official sources said that as per the law, any wood based industry has to obtain a no objection certificate from the Forest Department before opening such an industry, but this factory- GS Fragrance and Aromatics Limited, started production without receiving the NOC. During questioning by the Bureau officials, the owner of the industry, Jitendra Newadia admitted th! at he had applied for an NOC from the Forest Department, but he started production before receiving the same.
According to the statement given by the owner, the industry brings in sandalwood from places like Delhi, Kanpur and Karnataka and even imports the same from Tanzania to produce sandalwood oil. According to his own admission, he started production in the month of March and so far sold more than 700 kilogram of oil, sources said. Sources further revealed that one kilogram of sandalwood oil costs nearly Rs 60,000. Though the owner of the company admitted that he started production in the month of March, the records seized from the factory say otherwise and as per the records, the factory started piling stocks of sandalwood from January itself.
The factory still has huge stock of sandalwood and oil and as per records, as on June 13, the factory had a stock of more than 12 tonnes of sandalwood. Sources said that 16 to 20 kg of sandalwood oil can be produced from one ! tonne of sandalwood brought from Tanzania and more than 50 kg can be produced from one tonne of sandalwood produced in India.
The BIEO has decided to carry out further raids in the factory to ascertain whether the taxes were paid regularly. Moreover, the matter had been referred to the Forest Department for further action and as per the law there is a probability of the factory being sealed, sources added.
How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos. Get Yahoo! Photos
_______________________________________________ Assam mailing list [email protected] http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/mailman/listinfo/assam
Mailing list FAQ: http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/assam/assam-faq.html To unsubscribe or change options: http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/mailman/options/assam
