Ferozepore, April 5
Negligence of duty on the part of Markfed officials has duped Asia’s biggest co-operative society of more than Rs 1 crore at its Guru Har Sahai branch. The tangled tale of embezzlement of Markfed’s money in this branch has also brought to light many frauds in Ferozepore amounting to more than Rs 20 crore.
According to the details available, 20,661 bags of paddy was shown lifted in the registers of Markfed, the procurement agency of the area, from two commission agents of Tibbi Kalan and Tibbi Khurd grain markets during the last procurement season of paddy, but actually the paddy was never purchased. Interestingly, the Markfed officials also released an equal number of bags to the commission agents to get it transported to the rice millers.
The modus operandi of the fraud was simple. Markfed officials instead of visiting the grain market used to call up the commission agents to know the figures of purchase. The agents falsely dictated the purchase figures to the officials. As the gate passes of rice mills were already with the commission agents the paddy was shown lifted and transported to the rice mills on paper. Subsequently, the payments was released by Markfed through the marketing society to the agents.
Interestingly, many other commission agents and rice millers were also found involved in the fraud. But when an inquiry was held by the officials of Markfed the release bags were found missing. Immediately, the bags were purchased from the market illegally by the commission agents and the rice millers at the behest of the Markfed officials and were deposited in the store. Again, the paper work was completed accordingly to show that everything was right in the purchase registers.
Sources in Markfed revealed that still more than 8,000 empty bags are missing from the Markfed store. But the officials denied the allegation terming it as “baseless”.
When contacted, the District Manager of Markfed, Mr H.S. Bains, said there was a fraud in the purchase of paddy by producing fake documents. After an internal inquiry the matter has been referred to the Vigilance Department for initiating criminal proceedings against certain commission agents of Tibbi Kalan grain market and Marok Trading Company of Tibbi Khurd grain market. He did not rule out the involvement of Markfed officials in the fraud. However, the criminal proceeding recommended to the Vigilance Department does not indict any Markfed official involved in the fraud.
During the inquiries when more such frauds came to light attempts were made to cover up all cases. Payments of commission
agents have been stopped.
The purchase of 2,486 bags of paddy at the Fattewala grain market was shown purchased in the registers on February 20, just to tally the figures. Actually, the commission agents purchased the paddy in September, 2001, during the purchase season and the milling was also completed before the end of the year. Why the purchase was delayed indicates that there was something wrong.
Truck operators of Mamdot also alleged that the Markfed officials have not released the payments for transportation for 1998 and 2001. Further when our correspondent tried to collect the details from the Markfed office it was revealed that the dealing clerk had gone on long leave for three months.
Markfed has also blacklisted 15 rice millers of the district for delay in milling of the paddy resulting in a loss of Rs crore to the procurement agency. But the amount is yet to be recovered.
