With FIRs against multiple agencies, Nafed cracks the whip on onion procurement

A year after alleged irregularities were detected in the government onion procurement process, the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (Nafed) has filed two FIRs against multiple agencies, including the Goa Cooperative Marketing Federation, for their alleged role in the scam.

This month, apart from the Goa marketing federation, Nafed also filed an FIR against six federations of farmer-producer organisations in Maharashtra. “We have blacklisted six federations that failed to deliver onion as per the requirement and further investigation is pending,” a Nafed official said.

According to Nafed, the federations had shown that onions were procured on paper, but in reality, no procurement was done. Extensive paper trails were created to show that onion was procured and disposed of, but no such business had occurred, the official said. Some of the federations had sold off the buffer stock of onion in the open market and failed to deliver the produce when asked, the official added.