Central Agency Alleges Another Rs 175 Crore Bribery Scam in Chhattisgarh

The Enforcement Directorate alleged another "scam" in poll-bound Chhattisgarh on Monday, claiming a former managing director of the state Marketing Federation Limited or MARKFED, and an office-bearer of a local rice millers' association generated Rs 175 crore in bribe for the "benefit of higher powers".

Over the last few months, the agency has claimed to have unearthed a coal levy, a liquor duty and an illegal online betting app "scam" in the Congress-ruled state.

The agency 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 IAS officers, a police officer and some others.

In the latest alleged scam, the ED has claimed in a statement that it has found a similar nexus following searches conducted in the state against former MARKFED chief Manoj Soni, some office-bearers of the state rice millers' association, including treasurer Roshan Chandrakar, district marketing officers and a few rice millers, on October 20 and 21.

The agency said its action under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act stems from a complaint filed by the Income-Tax Department before a Raipur court.

The department has alleged that the office-bearers of the Chhattisgarh rice millers' association "colluded" with officials of the 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 was "exorbitantly" increased to Rs 120 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, on receiving the bills of the rice millers, cross-checked those with the details received from the district rice millers' association 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 claimed the increase in the special allowance from Rs 40 to Rs 120 per quintal has released payments of Rs 500 crore, generating "kickbacks" of Rs 175 crore, which were collected by Mr Chandrakar with the assistance of Mr Soni for the benefit of "higher powers".
The agency claimed 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 held on December 3. The electoral battle is largely between the Congress and BJP.