‘Company led by minister’s kin used bogus documents to avail grants’

On January 19, the state agriculture department had sanctioned the grant to the firm under the Centre’s Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana for setting up a 10-metric tonne milk powder project and the expansion of its existing dairy plant. While Deshmukh had founded LMCHS, his son, Rohan, is now at the helm of affairs.

Of the Rs 24.81 crore sanctioned, grants worth Rs 5 crore have already been released, the documents showed. The Congress also released LMCHS’s internal documents to show that the decision to avail the grant and set up the milk powder project had been taken in 2015 when Deshmukh himself was overseeing the firm.

Incidentally, Congress’ accusation against Deshmukh’s firm is based on an investigation conducted by the state government itself. On October 4, 2018, Solapur district’s dairy development officer (DDO) had submitted a report to his superior — the regional DDO in Pune — contending that LMCHS was found to have furnished bogus documents to avail the grant. The report recommended a detailed probe at the department level.

On Monday, Mumbai Congress president Sanjay Nirupam, who made the Solapur DDO’s investigation report public, said the official papers had been obtained under the Right to Information Act.

Documents showed that the investigation had been ordered in the matter after the dairy development commissioner (DDC) and the government’s dairy development department’s under secretary had received a specific complaint on August 13 from Solapur resident Apparao More. The latter has now approached the EOW in the matter.

Incidentally, on Monday, the state’s general administration department issued orders transferring the current DDC commissioner, R R Jadhav as commissioner (Labour).

“This is a serious fraud. The minister’s firm has used bogus documents and forged official signatures to avail central grants. Government’s own investigation has proved this. The minister must step down and a cheating case should be lodged without delay,” Nirupam said.

While Deshmukh remained unavailable for comment, the LMCHS issued an official statement endorsed by its managing director. The firm claimed that “it had itself sought the probe after receiving complaints in this regard”. Alleging that accusations being raised now were “politically motivated”, the firm appeared to be distancing itself and the minister from the controversy. “The firm had engaged a private consultant to obtain the various permissions. It was their task to procure these,” it said.

As part of the investigation, Solapur’s DDO had approached various departments for accessing records of the respective permits shown to have been procured. According to the probe report, at least five departments and agencies — PWD, Maharashtra Pollution Control Board, Maharashtra State Electricity Board, food and drugs department and labour department — wrote back confirming that the permits submitted by LMCHS as being obtained from them were not authentic.

On September 14, 2018, the deputy divisional engineer of the PWD in Solapur wrote that the “department had issued no permit to LMCHS.” He contended that the “official signatures had been forged.”

Similarly, on September 6, the FDA’s Solapur wing informed that “it had not issued any permit to the LMCHS.” It contended that the permit submitted by the LMCHS (to avail the grant) had actually been issued to another group company, Lokmangal Products Limited, which operates from an independent address.

On September 7, deputy director (Security and Health), Solapur, also informed that “license to operate had not been issued to LMCHS.” He claimed that the document issued to Lokmangal Biotech Private Limited had been used. On September 25, the Solapur collector’s office confirmed that “it had not yet found a record to show that the NA (non agricultural) permit had been issued.” “Records are still being searched… There was also no record to show that the LMCHS had paid fees towards the NA permit,” it stated.

The DDO’s report further pointed out that four of the milk processing and chilling centres shown as being part of the project were found to be inoperational during an inspection carried out on June 26, while another one was found to be non-existing. While the DDO wrote to the LMCHS’s executive director on August 27 over the submission of documents, the report states that the firm is yet to respond.

In light of the allegations, the dairy commissioner’s office had on August 27 ordered the LMCHS to defer utilisation of the released grants till “the investigation had been completed.” The LMCHS, meanwhile, claimed that “grants won’t be spent till the investigation is over.”