A B Khare appointed as new chairman & managing director of the fertilisers and chemicals travancore

KOCHI: The Centre has removed Jaiveer Srivastava as the CMD of the Fertilizers and Chemicals Travancore Limited (FACT) and has appointed A B Khare, chairman and managing director of Madras Fertilizers, in his place. Srivastava has been accused of financial misconduct and the CBI has filed an FIR against him in connection with alleged irregularities in the gypsum deal.
At the company's board meeting chaired by Khare in New Delhi on Thursday, FACT chief vigilance officer Vinayan presented a report on the gypsum deal.
Subsequently, the director board members decided to initiate major disciplinary action against chief general manager (CGM) Srinath Kamath, CGM Ambika I S, CGM Panchanan Poddar and deputy general manager Daniel Madhukar. Minor disciplinary action will be taken against general manager George Satheesh and general manager R Radhakrishnan. There are reports that Kamath, Ambika, Poddar and Madukar have been suspended. But there was no official confirmation in this regard.
A few days ago, CBI had conducted raids at 22 centres, including residences of CMD and other top officials.
The FACT authorities decided to sell gypsum on a large-scale in April 2015. At first, they invited tender for selling 10 lakh metric tonne of gypsum. As no firms responded to it, the FACT authorities invited fresh tenders to sell 3.5 lakh of gypsum for two years. Then, Nagarajuna Chemicals Private Limited, NSS Trade India Private Limited and Kia Agro Tech submitted tenders.
But the then finance director Muthaiah demanded cancellation of tender citing cartelization. It was found that Kia Agro Tech and Nagarjuna had the same address, office and telephone numbers. But the CMD didn't take any action against the firms.