Lens on MP pulse procurement scam, cooperative officials among 10 booked

BHOPAL: An FIR has been filed against 10 people in Madhya Pradesh’s Jabalpur for allegedly causing a Rs 1.86 crore loss to the exchequer by making bogus entries of moong and urad in the e-procurement portal.Police have booked cooperative officials, computer operators, bank staff, surveyors, and a warehouse manager for inflating entries to siphon off funds. However, past records of procurement scams suggest the rot may run much deeper.A closer scrutiny of the data reveals that in at least nine districts, procurement figures exceeded actual production reported in 2022-23. In Chhindwara, 7,628 tonnes of pulses were procured this year against a production of 3,074 tonnes in 2022-23. If accurate, this would mean the district’s pulse production more than doubled in just a year. In Khargone, procurement reached 10,712 tonnes compared with 8,120 tonnes of output in 2022-23. Even in smaller districts like Umaria, Betul, Mandla, Dhar, and Satna, procurement exceeded last year’s production – in some cases more than two-fold. Some districts that reported zero production in 2022-23 also showed procurement this year. In 2017, TOI reported how more pulses were procured than produced in Narsinghpur’s Tendukheda block. At least 300 “farmers” who sold pulses worth Rs 7 crore could not be verified, leading to probe committees and demands for a CBI inquiry. The scandal eventually exposed procurement from “ghost” farmers and inflated entries made with the complicity of officials. On Monday, farmers staged a shirtless protest in Narsinghpur, alleging they had not received payment for the moong procured from them.