The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday alleged another ‘scam’ in poll-bound state Chhattisgarh. In this connection, he has claimed that a former managing director of Chhattisgarh ‘Markfed’ and an official of a local rice mill owners association collected bribe of Rs 175 crore for ‘the benefit of people holding high positions’.
In the last few months, the ED has claimed to have exposed ‘scams’ related to coal levy, liquor duty and an illegal online gambling app. There is a Congress government in the state under the leadership of Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel.
ED has claimed that in all these cases, bribe amount worth crores of rupees was collected with the connivance of local leaders and bureaucrats. It has so far arrested several Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers, a police officer and a few others in the above mentioned cases.
In a statement, the ED alleged that in the latest ‘scam’ related to incentive money on the process of extracting rice from paddy, it was arrested on October 20-21 by former Markfed Managing Director Manoj Soni, State Paddy Mill Owners Association Treasurer Roshan Chandrakar and some of his associates. Similar nexus was revealed after searches against officials, District Marketing Officers (DMOs), some mill owners.
She said her criminal action under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act is based on a complaint filed by the Income Tax Department in a court in the state capital Raipur. The tax department had alleged that officials of the Chhattisgarh Paddy Mill Owners Association colluded with officials of the State Marketing Federation Limited (Markfed) and ‘conspired’ to misuse the special incentive given to the mills on the process of extracting rice from paddy. The owners are given Rs 40 per quintal of rice by the state government. Chhattisgarh is called ‘Rice Bowl’ for its high production of rice.
ED said that this amount of Rs 40 was significantly increased to Rs 120 per quintal and it was paid in two installments of Rs 60 each. The ED said that the officials of Chhattisgarh Rice Mill Owners Association, under the leadership of its treasurer Chandrakar, colluded with Markfed Managing Director Soni and started collecting a bribe of Rs 20 per quintal from the mill owners for extracting rice from the paddy.
He said that the District Mill Owners Association sent the details of the mill owners who gave cash to the concerned DMO. He said that on receiving the bills of these mill owners, the DMOs would match them with the details received from the respective District Mill Owners Association and this information would be sent to the Markfed head office. He has alleged that ‘Markfed approved only the bills of those mill owners who gave cash to the association.
The ED investigation found that Rs 500 crore was released on the basis of increasing the special allowance from Rs 40 per quintal to Rs 120 per quintal and a ‘bribe’ of Rs 175 crore was collected from it, which Chandrakar said was paid to ‘people in high positions’. ‘ Submitted with the active help of Sony for the benefit of.
The probe agency said it seized ‘prosecutable material, digital devices and unaccounted cash worth Rs 1.06 crore’ during the raids.
Elections for the 90-member Chhattisgarh Assembly will be held on November 7 and 17. Counting of votes will take place on December 3. The contest in the state is mainly between the ruling Congress and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party.