After an alleged scam related to procurement and sale of onions, the Delhi government’s Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) has received a complaint about large-scale financial irregularities in the procurement of Centrally-subsidised sugar.
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Filed by Right to Information (RTI) activist and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member Vivek Garg, the Delhi government is alleged to have favoured two private firms in the procurement of one lakh kilograms of sugar in what is now being dubbed the “sugar scam”.
Sources in the ACB said a preliminary enquiry had been registered and investigation initiated after Mr. Garg alleged that the consignment, as per an RTI reply by the Delhi government, was stated to have been procured at a cost of Rs.33 crore as per market rates even as the Centre is understood to have provided a 90 per cent subsidy to the Delhi government for the same.
“In his complaint, Mr. Garg has alleged that the government procured sugar from the first company at a cost of Rs.30 per kg, while the other was paid Rs.33 per kg, which clearly equalled the existence of financial irregularities in the transactions,” said a senior ACB official.
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On its part, the Delhi government vehemently denied the allegations against the Delhi State Civil Supplies Corporation Limited (DSCSC), the Department which procured the consignment of sugar on its behalf, and claimed that the entire procurement procedure had been executed through e-tendering which ruled out any bias towards potential bidders to fulfil the requirement of sugar.
The matter, according to a senior Delhi government official, was even discussed at length at a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers on Wednesday, following which the decision to slap a defamation notice worth Rs.500 crore against a prominent media group for broadcasting a televised story related to the scam was also taken.
“The DSCSC has taken exception to some baseless, false, misleading and defamatory allegations telecast against it by a few TV channels on Wednesday regarding procurement of sugar...The Corporation strongly denies all such baseless allegations and reserves the right of legal action against such misleading news items,” the Corporation said in a statement.
The nodal agency for procurement and distribution of sugar under open market scheme of Central Government, the Corporation said it procured sugar “in a transparent manner through e-tenders under two bid system of technical and financial bid by giving the wide publicity in the leading newspapers”.
“After following the due procedure of e-tender, the sugar is purchased from the lowest bidder [L-1] at market competitive rates, hence the question of procuring sugar at any other rate does not arise,” the DSCSC added.
The complainant has alleged the government procured sugar from the first company at a cost of Rs.30 per kg, while the other was paid Rs.33 per kg, which clearly equalled the existence of financial irregularities in the transactions