ED alleges another scam in poll-bound Chhattisgarh, Rs 175 crore bribes generated for ‘benefit of higher powers’

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday alleged another “scam” in poll-bound Chhattisgarh as it claimed that a former managing director of the state MARKFED and an office-bearer of a local rice millers’ association generated Rs 175 crore bribes for the “benefit of higher powers”.

Over the last few months, the federal probe agency has claimed to have unearthed a coal levy, a liquor duty and an illegal online betting app “scam” in the state that has a Congress government led by Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel.

The ED has alleged that in all these instances, kickbacks worth crores of rupees were generated through a nexus of local politicians and bureaucrats. It has arrested a number of Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers, a police official and some others in these above-mentioned cases till now.

In the latest custom rice-milling special incentive “scam”, the ED has alleged in a statement that it has found a similar nexus following searches conducted in the central Indian state against former MARKFED MD Manoj Soni, some office-bearers of the state rice millers’ association, including treasurer Roshan Chandrakar, district marketing officers (DMOs) and a few rice millers, on October 20 and 21.

The agency said its criminal action under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) stems from a complaint filed by the income-tax department before a court in state capital Raipur, where the tax department had alleged that the office-bearers of the Chhattisgarh rice millers’ association “colluded” with officers of the state marketing federation limited (MARKFED) and “hatched a conspiracy to misuse the special incentive where Rs 40 per quintal of paddy was paid by the state government to rice millers for custom milling of rice”.

The state is known as the rice bowl of the country due to a high volume of paddy production. The ED said this amount of Rs 40 was “exorbitantly” increased to Rs 120 per quintal of paddy and this was paid in two instalments of Rs 60 each.

“The office-bearers of the Chhattisgarh state rice millers’ association under the leadership of its treasurer Chandrakar, in connivance with Soni, MD of MARKFED, started collecting a kickback amount of Rs 20 per instalment for each quintal of paddy milled from the rice millers.

“The details of the rice millers who have paid the cash amounts were sent by the district rice millers’ association to the concerned DMO,” the ED has found.

The DMOs, upon receiving the bills of the rice millers, cross-checked those with the details received from the district rice millers’ association concerned and this information was then passed on to the MARKFED head office, it said. The bills of “only those rice millers who have paid a cash amount” to the association were cleared by the MD, MARKFED for payment, it has alleged.

The ED probe has found that on the basis of the increase in the special allowance from Rs 40 to Rs 120 per quintal, payments of Rs 500 crore were released, generating “kickbacks” of Rs 175 crore, which were collected by Chandrakar with the active assistance of Soni for the benefit of “higher powers”. The agency has said it has seized “incriminating” documents, digital devices and “unaccounted cash” amounting to Rs 1.06 crore during the raids.

The 90-member Chhattisgarh Assembly will go to polls in two phases on November 7 and November 17 and the counting of votes will be taken up on December 3. In Chhattisgarh, the electoral battle is largely between the two main national parties — Congress and BJP.