AHMEDABAD

07 August 2018 03:45 IST

Gujarat’s groundnut purchase scam appears to be escalating, with the alleged involvement of local BJP leaders and officials of cooperative institutions.

The State government has asserted that those involved in the scam will not be spared. Police have arrested 22 persons, including officials of two agencies involved in the purchase of groundnut ₹4000 crore.

On Monday, Rajkot police carried out raids at several police following reports that scamsters had stolen groundnut and replaced sacks with mud, sand and pebbles. According to sources, more than 10 kg of mud and sand was mixed in each sack of 35 kg. “There may be more arrests as the investigation progresses,” said a police official from Rajkot.

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In 2017-18, the State government purchased 10.46 lakh metric tonne of groundnut worth ₹4000 crore through 139 purchase centres across the Saurashtra region. The purchase price was ₹4500 a quintal against the then prevailing market price of approximately ₹3700. The Centre had appointed National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Limited (NAFED) to procure groundnut from farmers of Gujarat at an MSP of ₹4,450 a quintal and the State government had announced ₹50 bonus over and above the MSP.

“Around 4.39 lakh metric tonnes of the adulterated stock had already been sold in the market,” Gujarat’s Additional Chief Secretary (Agriculture) Sanjay Prasad told The Hindu. “The authorities will not spare anyone involved in the fraud,” he said.

Stock worth ₹50.64 crore was gutted in fire at four private warehouses. After each incident, the government had ordered a probe to ascertain whether the fire was deliberate to destroy the stock.

“We want an independent probe by a sitting High Court judge. Only lower level officials and cooperative society members have been arrested so far, while the fish are allowed to escape,” said leader of the Opposition Paresh Dhanani.

Mr. Dhanani has been on a fast for several days demanding a judicial probe.

Gujarat police had earlier arrested 19 people, including Magan Zalavadiya, warehousing manager of Gujarat State Co-Operative Cotton Federation Limited (GUJCOT), for allegedly colluding with members of the cooperative society of Junagadh in adulterating the groundnut stock.

NAFED had assigned the task of procuring groundnut stock to five cooperative bodies of Gujarat — GUJCOT, GUJCOMASOL, GUJPRO, Banas Dairy and Sabar Dairy — and they had subsequently engaged taluka and village-level cooperative societies in the process.