Even though Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik always blows the trumpet of honesty and transparency, the elected directors of the Odisha State Cooperative Marketing Federation limited (Markfed) have in a letter to the Chief Minister alleged a scam of Rs 100 crore in the organisation and demanded removal of its president.
The directors (all from BJD) in the letter stated the corpus fund of Rs 100 crore per year is misutilised by the Markfed authorities and the intended purpose of the fund as per Government guidelines is not achieved at all.
On the other hand, an amount of Rs 6 crore is borrowed from the Andhra Bank for refund of the corpus fund. The reason behind this is not clear and foul play is suspected, they said.
Non submission of rating to the bank till now has cost the federation Rs 80 lakh, which is a huge loss for which the Markfed administration led by its president and the Managing Director is responsible. The other lapses of the federation include irregular accounting system which has been highlighted by AGCS, Odisha’s report regularly. Besides the compliance report has not been submitted till date which violates cooperative rules and guidelines, they stated.
They further alleged that 28, 743MT of paddy has been procured from about 2,500 ghost farmers without P PAS data base at Bargarh during 2015-16 and the matter was reported by the Bargarh Collector. But no action has been taken against the Manager (PP), Bargarh though the president of the federation is the abettor of the misappropriation and fraud, they stated.
Needless to say that president of Markfed Bibhudatta Pradhan as a Class -IV employee of RMC, Bargarh toll gate was previously doing paddy business at Bargarh as agent of some millers.
However, crores of rupees are to be realised from custom millers, tenants, employees and other agencies since long. This was discussed in the board meeting in detail but the authorities are not giving stress to recover the funds. It is apprehended that there is a nexus between the Markfed administration and the defaulters throughout Odisha, the directors alleged.
Besides, the authorities had given advertisement in some vernacular papers for the Annual General Body meeting of Markfed on November 3last. later, the authorities postponed the meeting saying that the Assembly Secretariat has asked them to do so. But in reality the Assembly Secretariat in a letter to all departments (Notification no-8507) dated November 13, 2016 has asked to submit the names of all officers, whom passes would be issued for the current Assembly Session, they alleged.
The directors further demanded computerisation at all levels. They said that the authorities are delaying it to tamper with records. Besides, they also demanded posting of a chartered accountant for internal audit which has been delayed by a year.
MlA Debesh Acharya had questioned in the Assembly about the corrupt practices in Markfed and the Cooperation Minister had said that a Vigilance inquiry would be conducted. But it has been pushed under the carpet. It is alleged that the president is a loyalist of Minister Snehagini Chhuria.
The directors have sought immediate intervention of the Chief Minister to prevent Markfed from becoming another hub of white elephants and get bankrupt and locked. Besides, the State farmers’ interest should be protected and the unholy nexus of the authorities should be exposed, demanded advocate Subrat Nanda.
