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Inventor to return fake gold medal to CM

Originator of HMT (Sona) rice variety Dadaji Khobragade will return his Krishi Bhushan award medal to the chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh on Thursday.

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NAGPUR: Originator of HMT (Sona) rice variety Dadaji Khobragade will return his Krishi Bhushan award medal to the chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh on Thursday, following revelation that his 14 carat gold medal was actually substandard silver.

Sexagenarian Dadaji, who invented nearly ten varieties of rice on his one-acre farm in Nanded village in Chandrapur district, wanted to return his medal on Wednesday, but since the chief minister was in Nashik, he could not do so.

Dadaji told DNA that he would request Deshmukh to give real gold medals to all the 19 recipients of Krishi Bhushan awards or give equivalent cash awards, so that they could continue farming and pursue their experiments.

A poor Dadaji, who is also the recipient of prestigious Riccharia Memorial award and the national Rural Innovator Award, would be handing over a letter to Deshmukh seeking an aid of Rs10 lakh and 10-acre farm for himself. “I want to continue with my on-farm experiments, but I don’t have resources to fund them,” he said.

The state government has already initiated an inquiry and a complaint has also been lodged against a professor of JJ School of Fine Arts, who was entrusted with the responsibility of designing and production of the contentious medals.

On Monday, the issue had rocked the state legislative council during the ongoing winter session. Council chairman Shivajirao Deshmukh had put on hold the question regarding all fake gold medals presented as Krushi Bhushan awards to the progressive farmers in the state for the unsatisfactory reply given by minister of state for agriculture Rana Jagjitsingh Patil. Sena member Dr Neelam Gorhe, Nitin Gadkari (BJP), Divakar Raote (Shiv Sena) and others had raised it.

It may be recalled that Dadaji came to know that the gold medal presented to him by the government was of sub-standard silver and only had gold polish on it.

He was presented a 50 gm 14-carat gold medal, a cash prize of Rs25,000 and a citation from Maharashtra governor at Raj Bhavan in Mumbai on October 13 last year for his achievement.

Facing financial problems, he decided to sell his medal. That was when a local jeweller informed him that the medal was made of sub-standard silver and had gold polish.

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