Another ED case in Chhattisgarh, claims Rs 175 cr kickbacks to ‘higher powers’ in rice milling

“The raids were carried out after conducting an investigation based on a complaint filed by the Income Tax Department… before the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Raipur, wherein it was alleged that that the officer-bearers of the Chhattisgarh Rice Millers’ Association colluded with officers of the Chhattisgarh State Marketing Federation and hatched a conspiracy to misuse the special incentive and earn crores of bribe kickbacks,” a statement issued by the ED said.

The ED has alleged that till the kharif year 2021-22, a special incentive of Rs 40 per quintal of paddy was paid by the Congress government to rice millers for the custom milling of paddy. But the incentive was subsequently increased exorbitantly to Rs 120 per quintal.

“The office-bearers of the Chhattisgarh Rice Millers’ Association led by treasurer Roshan Chandrakar in connivance with Manoj Soni, MD, MARKFED, started collecting kickbacks of Rs 20 per instalment for each quintal of paddy milled from the rice millers. The details of rice millers who paid the cash amounts were sent by the district rice millers association to the concerned district marketing officer,” the ED alleged.

The DMOs, upon receiving the bills of rice millers, cross-checked them with the details received from the concerned district rice millers’ association. This information was then passed on to the MARKFED head office. The bills of only those rice millers who paid the cash amount to the association were cleared by the MARKFED MD for payment.

The ED alleged that Rs 500 crore was paid to rice millers after the increased incentive and, in return, kickbacks of Rs 175 crores were received by Chandrakar, with active assistance from Soni, for the benefit of “higher powers”. So far, the agency has seized Rs 1.06 crore in unaccounted cash and found “incriminating” documents against the accused in the case.

The Congress, however, has denied the charges, claiming the case is politically motivated with elections for the 90-member Assembly scheduled for November 7 and 17. The party’s Chhattisgarh media cell chief, Sushil Anand Shukla, said: “The ED connives with the BJP in Chhattisgarh to write scripts and works according to the script to work in favour of the BJP. This will not have any effect on the elections as Chhattisgarh public knows ED works on instructions of BJP.”

The ED has yet not clarified who the “higher powers” are in this case but the agency has previously accused Congress leaders, without naming the state’s ruling party, of corruption including misappropriating money received from coal levy commission amounting to Rs 540 crore, illegal liquor sales that cost the state exchequer Rs 2,160 crore, and laundering an estimated Rs 5,000 crore through the Mahadev betting app. The political leaders allegedly involved were said to have taken commissions in all four cases to fund their political activities.