RAIPUR
The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) on Monday said that a former managing director of the Chhattisgarh State Cooperative Marketing Federation (MARKFED henceforth) and an office-bearer of a local rice millers’ association pulled off a “Custom Rice Milling special incentive scam” in the State, generating ₹175 crore bribes for the “benefit of higher powers”.
With less than a fortnight to go for the first phase of Chhattisgarh elections, the latest ED claim comes as another arsenal for the Opposition that has been targeting the State’s Bhupesh Baghel-led Congress government over other alleged scams connected to coal levy, liquor sales and online betting. The ED is probing money laundering angle in all these cases as well and has arrested, or named as accused, several bureaucrats and politicians.
According to the ED, the latest alleged scam is connected with a special incentive that the State government pays to the rice millers for custom milling of paddy. This incentive amount, an ED statement said, was “exorbitantly” increased from ₹40 to ₹120 per quintal and then “payments were released worth Rs 500 Crore, generating kickbacks of Rs 175 Crore”.
These alleged kickbacks were purportedly received from rice millers in lieu of facilitating the passage of bills to claim the special incentive. They had to pay bribes at the rate of ₹20 per instalment for each quintal of paddy milled, according to ED, and the amounts were “collected by the office bearers of Chhattisgarh State Rice Millers Association under the leadership of its Treasurer, Roshan Chandrakar, in connivance with Manoj Soni, [then] MD, MARKFED”.
MARKFED is a body that executes paddy procurement under Price Support Scheme and supply of chemical fertilizers and plant protection material to the farmers of the state as per the instructions of the Government. According to the ED, “the bills of only those rice millers who had paid cash amount to the association were cleared by MD, MARKFED for payment”.
Explaining the process of this purported verification method, i.e. which bills were to be cleared, the ED statement said first, the details of rice millers who had paid the cash amounts were sent by the district rice millers association to the concerned District Marketing Officers (DMOs). These DMOs, upon receiving the bills of rice millers, cross-checked them with the details received and passed the information on to the head office of MARKFED, the ED press statement added.
The agency in its statement said that it had conducted search operations on October 20 and October 21 at the premises of ex-MD of MARKFED, Treasurer & Office bearers of Chhattisgarh Rice Millers Association, District Marketing Officers, and few Rice Millers in connection with the scam and that it initiated investigation on the basis of a Complaint filed by Income Tax Department under various sections of Information Technology Act, 1961 and Indian Penal Code, 1860 before a Raipur court.
