RAJKOT: While Union minister for state for agriculture Parshottam Rupala claimed he did not know anything about Boda’s allegations, Nafed vice chairman chose to side with the state government. “I don’t know about this (allegations),” Rupala told TOI.
Sanghani, a senior BJP leader said, “Two agencies hired by Nafed to check the stock at warehouses had certified the quality. Based on their certificate, the amount is credited in farmers’ account. If the stock is of the poor quality, it should be returned to respective cooperative society. As far as warehouses are concerned, it’s the responsibility of GWC.”
Nafed has booked losses of Rs 40 crore in four incidents of warehouse fires this year.
“All the warehouses where fire broke out belong to GWC or hired by APMC, which were violating all the norms. There was no fire in the warehouses of Central Warehouse Corporation (CWC),” said Nafed chairman V R Boda.
It must be noted that in the Shapar warehouse fire which gutted 28,000 bags (each weighing 35 kg), investigating agencies had found huge quantity of mud, husk and pebbles mixed with groundnut. Boda held procurement centres responsible for this and alleged that the warehouses were hired
The procurement guidelines and conditions are approved by the Central government. “For years, Nafed has been assigning the procurement work to
Gujarat Cooperative Marketing Society Ltd (GUJCOMASOL). This time, the state government decided on the procurement centres without consulting Nafed and incompetent co operative societies were chosen. Nearly 80% centres were allotted to Gujarat State Co-operative Cotton Federation Ltd (GUJCOT).”
As a pre-poll sop, the state government had announced buying groundnut at Rs 900 per 20 kg. On the request of state government, the centre had procured nearly 8.30 lakh ton groundnut at MSP by spending Rs 3,734 crore in the election year.
“It’s the individual centre’s responsibility to keep all the revenue records, bank transactions, documents of talati-mantri, check quality of groundnut and transportation. Had this work been allotted to GUJCOMASOL, it would have been smooth as they have a network ,” he said.