Ranchi, Feb. 6: Multiple establishments owned by Rungta Mines Limited, one of the largest private mining entities in the state, were raided by income tax authorities in Jharkhand, Odisha, Bengal and Delhi today.

While income tax officials claimed the raids were in connection with tax evasion and other violations, sources said the CBI, probing an illegal mining scam in Jharkhand, had detected challans purportedly issued by the Rungtas but being used by other exporters while transporting illegally mined minerals, prompting the crackdown.

Set up by late Sitaram Rungta, the company operates from Rungta House in the Sadar Bazaar locality of Chaibasa. Raids were carried out there and other establishments in Seraikela-Kharsawan in Jharkhand, Barbil, Bhubaneswar and Dhenkanal in Odisha, Calcutta and Delhi.

“The details of seizures are not available. The proprietors of the firm are not co-operating on some pretext or the other. We can only talk once the raids are wrapped up,” income tax department’s additional director Ajit Kumar Shrivastava told The Telegraph.

A Chaibasa-based businessmen, requesting anonymity, said the raids started early morning and continued well into the night. “Rungta House has been turned in to a fortress by security personnel,” he said.

Rungta Mines Limited controls two big iron ore mines in Jharkhand’s mineral-rich West Singhbhum district —301.520 acre of Meralgarha mines since 1974 and 349.09 acre of the undisputed Ghatkuri forest area since 1999.

State mines and geology department officials said the company was one of the biggest private miners in the state. “It pays an annual royalty of Rs 50 to Rs 60 crore to the West Singhbhum district mining office,” an official said.

Besides, over half a dozen iron ore mines in Jharkhand and Odisha — it has a big presence in Keonjhar — the company has set up or is in the process of setting up a few steel and power plants in the region.

Rungta Mines has its registered office in Calcutta while Chaibasa is its headquarters. Chairman Nandlal Rungta is one of the top office-bearers of Jharkhand State Cricket Association (JSCA). His son Siddharth Rungta is a former president of Federation of Indian Mineral Industries.

So far, the Rungtas have been one of the biggest iron ore exporters. But, after Jharkhand and Odisha governments put in place a local value addition clause, the company is in the process of setting up a sponge iron and power plant in Seraikela-Kharsawan and similar units in Odisha’s Angul and Barbil regions.