THERE is no sector in governance that has not been touched by corruption under the UPA. It even managed to pull in the Defence personnel, who have been hitherto viewed as largely men of integrity, into its insatiable hunger for stealing public money. The scam scene is breaking out serially, with the actors changing in each episode. Some have a second chance.
Telecom, civil aviation, sports, defence, public distribution, food grains, agriculture, financial sector and so the list goes on and on. The latest is the expose on rice exports. According to a report in The Indian Express, (December 8, 2010) a Group of Ministers (GoM) constituted to consider the distress call from some African countries over escalating food prices, allowed export of non-basmati rice on “humanitarian” ground. The ban on export of this quality of rice was lifted only for these African countries and three PSUs-the State Trading Corporation, MMTC and Projects Equipment Commodities Ltd-were allowed this export between 2007 and 2009.
In a brazen violation of norms, the PSUs allowed private suppliers to directly negotiate and strike deals with the African countries. While the PSUs got a margin of 1 to 1.5 per cent, the private suppliers walked away with anything between 26 to 40 per cent profit. A Commerce Ministry inquiry into this exposed the fraud. It sent a report to the Central Vigilance Commission which has asked the CBI to inquire into it. According to the report, the importing governments seem to have stuck deals with private suppliers, though the PSUs were supposed to be the nodal agency. The Commerce Ministry’s inquiry has exposed the collapse of the intra-organisational mechanism which should have prevented such a scam. Notice has been issued to 15 senior officials of the three PSUs and three private exporters have been blacklisted and debarred from dealing with any government department.
This scam very much reminds one of another loot involving food grain import by the Agriculture Ministry in 2007. Then, BJP leader Kirit Somaiya had blown the whistle on the issue in a well-documented booklet, A Tale of Wheat Scam. These imports were made at double the rate that the UPA gave to Indian farmers as minimum support price. But the larger scam was elsewhere. The Agriculture Ministry first cancelled its own orders for import issued in May 2007, as it felt the prices were too high. But in September it issued orders for import again paying even higher than the May price. The move prima facie helped MNCs like Cargill, Glencor and others.
For instance, Cargill purchased good quality grains from Indian farmers at `8 to `8.50 per kg while the government had placed orders for import of wheat from Cargill Inc. at `16 per kg. And the quality of this imported stuff was so poor that it was not fit for human consumption. The government in the process enriched the farmers of US, Australia and other European countries. The worth of the stink was then estimated at `10,000 crore.
Then there was the sugar scandal. The government imported and exported sugar simultaneously. The sweetener was being exported at `12.5 per kg and imported at `36 per kg at the same time. The total profits of 33 listed sugar mills jumped from `30 crore in October-December 2008 to `901 crore in the same period next year, a jump of 2900 per cent.
The food grain rotting on open storehouses and the Supreme Court’s shocked comment on the issue are all in public domain. They need not be repeated here. Now an even bigger and inhuman theft in food grain meant for the poor public has come to light in Uttar Pradesh.
Is there no limit to the greed of the UPA towards public money? If people at the helm believe that nemesis will never catch up with them, they are living in a fool’s paradise. It is a fact that the track record of public accountability of our politicians has not been very inspiring. But like the proverbial last straw, one of these heists is going to be the last nail in the coffin of the UPA. In Hindi, the UPA would be called choron ki jamaat.
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