Mumbai: Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Sunday admitted to irregularities in the tur daal procurement process, and said the government will be initiating a probe. “I am not saying about the magnitude of the scam or any number but yes, there have been irregularities which we will probe,” Mr. Fadnavis told The Hindu .
Farmer organisations and even ministers have been alleging malpractice by traders in selling tur at the Minimum Support Price (MSP) of ₹5,050 fixed by the State government to profit around ₹800 to ₹1,000 per quintal. Over five lakh tonnes of tur was purchased by traders from Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMC) at rates well below the MSP offered at National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED) centres. Farmer organisations have alleged that the nexus of traders, NAFED officers, State government officials and market committees has minted money in the tur trade since December 2016.
Now, it appears that the State marketing department didn’t have accurate data on the tur produced this year. During the recently-concluded budget session of the Legislative Assembly, Cooperation and Marketing Minister Subhash Deshmukh said on March 17 that the second advance estimate for tur production in 2016-17 was 11.71 lakh tonne.
Besides being off the mark by nine lakh tonnes — the tur produced this year is 20.35 lakh tonnes as per data from the Chief Minister’s Office — the wrong estimate has apparently hampered the government’s preparations to procure tur at MSP.
“Is this a joke? How can the estimates be wrong by such huge margins? Is the Agriculture Department taking everyone for granted?” former Chief Minister and senior Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan said. He added that if Mr Fadnavis has accepted that there are irregularities, he should immediately suspend all officers involved.
Mr. Chavan added that ideally, the department does four estimates of a crop’s production, based on the area under cultivation, the monsoon, seed type and other data available with it. “One can understand if the estimate is off by a few thousands tonnes, but how can production increase by over nine lakh tonne within one month?” he said, and demanded an inquiry to ascertain if the tur is from the State or brought in from outside and sold here to benefit farmers.
Meanwhile, a government resolution issued last week by the State Co-operation and Marketing Department said the Commissioner (Marketing) has been tasked with collecting details of tur procurement at NAFED centres, and to draw up a list of the 1,000 biggest dealers in tur .
