GOA DAIRY POISED FOR CLEANUP

NT NETWORK

 

PANAJI

The government has dissolved the board of directors of the Goa State Co-operative Milk Producers Union Ltd, which is also known as Goa Dairy, for irregularities and mismanagement, appointing  senior government officer Damodar Morajkar as the administrator of the dairy.

The administrator has been asked to place the managing director of Goa Dairy Dr N C Sawant under suspension for the irregularities and corrupt practices and terminate him accordingly.

Registrar of Co-operative Societies Sanjiv Gadkar on Friday passed an order to this effect.

The order has said,  “The directors – Dhananjay Desai, Vithoba Desai, Baburao Desai, Naresh Malik, Gurudas Parab, Madhav Sahakari and Rajendra Sawal – are hereby disqualified to continue on the board of director of the Goa State Cooperative Milk Producers Union Limited (Goa Dairy) under Section 59 (11) of the Goa Cooperative Act.”

“Both the inspection reports have found discrepancies in  the working of the society which are irregular, illegal in nature and detrimental to the interest of the society,” the order has said.

The order has further stated that the former directors – Shrikant Naik, Vijaykant Gaonkar, Shivanand Pednekar and Ulhas Sinari – will be held responsible to the loss caused to the society over the purchases of fill-packed machine, ice cream plant machinery, recruitment of staff and the purchase of raw material for cattle feed plant, which will be determined and countrified by filing separate misappropriation under Section 82 of the act.

Holding  Dr  Sawant responsible for the sorry affairs of the Goa Dairy, the order has said, “The managing director Dr N C Sawant is wholly responsible for the irregularities and mismanagement and therefore shall be placed under suspension by the board of director/administrator and conduct a detail inquiry and initiate disciplinary inquiry for irregularities and corrupt practices and terminate him accordingly.”

The order has stated that detail inquiry will be conducted by the competent authority against the
assistant registrar of cooperative societies, Ponda zone, for misguiding or failing to guide the board of directors over the procurement and the recruitment.

“Under Section 67 A I hereby appoint Damodar Morajkar, a senior scale officer of Goa civil service, as an administrator of the Goa State Coop. Milk Producers Ltd, Ponda with immediate effect under 2nd proviso to Section 67 A of the Goa Cooperative Act and in relaxation of 1st proviso thereto, as Goa Diary  conducts business of essential commodities and  the work should not be hampered…, ” Gadkar has said in the order.

On August 23, 2018, the High Court of Bombay in Goa had directed the Registrar of Co-operative Societies to take a decision over the disqualification of directors and managing directors of the Goa Dairy before the annual general body meeting is held on September 2.

The office of RCS had received a complaint from one of the directors alleging irregularities in the management of the Goa Dairy for at least a year.

Accordingly an auditor had been appointed to inquire into the matter. Based on the report, proceedings were initialised and hearing had been in progress before the authority.

During the pendency of the above proceedings the office received a letter from the chairman of the Goa Dairy regarding gross misappropriation, fraud, malfunctioning at the Goa Dairy. Since the complaint had been received from the head of organisation, prima facie it was felt that the allegation needs to be inquired.

Accordingly an order was issued on April 6, 2018 appointing Sridhar alias Yatish Vernekar, a chartered accountant, under Section 77 of the Goa State Cooperative  Societies  Act, 2001,   to conduct an inquiry into the allegations and  the functioning of the Goa Dairy.

The inquiry officer submitted his report on May 22, 2018 exposing mass irregularities and mismanagement in the purchase of machines.

Besides,  the Goa Dairy failed to constitute a selection committee as per the bye-law for recruiting  employees, the report had claimed.

The inquiry report had also observed that the committee for procurement arbitrarily decided the vendor for the supply of raw material for cattle feed plant without following proper procedure, and unjustified payment was made for purchasing milk from outside the state.

As regards the utilisation of funds from the National Dairy Development Board, the Goa Dairy has not maintained proper vouchers in detail on  the use  of the said funds for the purpose it had been  sanctioned and the funds have been static for the last three years,  the inquiry reported had pointed out.