At a time when the Government is busy tussling with a series of contemptible fiddles and controversies, Bureaucracy Today chances upon yet another case of unchecked corruption, thus strengthening the dictum that confidence in the system is on the wane. After opening the Pandora’s box of fraudulence in the State Farms Corporation of India Limited (SFCI) and the National Research Development Corporation (NRDC), Bureaucracy Today digs deeper into unscrupulousness in the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED), which has been in the red for several years following the dissipated practices by its high-ups.
Avarice, chicanery, laxity and unchecked corruption combine together to deliver a scam in an organization. To say that the NAFED, the apex body to help the farmers’ cooperatives in consumer marketing, organic farming and joint venture businesses, is a cash cow and a hotbed of debauchery, will not be out of place. As a result, the corrupt practices have led to the ouster of an IAS officer and the then Managing Director, CV Ananda Bose, who was sent on a mandatory posting by the Government to check corruption in the NAFED.
NAFED, THE NEWSMAKER
On July 9, 2010, the Managing Director of the NAFED and a 1977 batch IAS officer from the Kerala cadre, CV Ananda Bose, found himself virtually in a soup when the Board called a meeting without any prior notice and sacked him on the charges of wrongdoing and embezzlement of funds to meet personal
expenses. The Board then handed over the charge to the Additional MD, PK Sharma. The move by the Board did not go down well with the Agriculture Ministry and the Government gave thumbs down to the decision and gave a clean chit to Bose. Terming the Board meeting ‘illegal’, Minister of State for Agriculture K V Thomas said though the Board enjoys the right to ask for a new MD, it does not have the right to appoint or sack the MD. Thomas further stated that the Government had inquired into the allegations made against Bose and found them to be uncorroborated. Thus Bose was reinstated. The Ministry also issued a show-cause notice to the Additional Managing Director for convening an “illegal board meeting”, and defying the government directive that authorizes only the MD to conduct such meetings.The removal and reinstatement of Bose, who also heads the Coconut Development Board, Kerala, turned the limelight on the all-encompassing corruption within the organization. The Government cracked the whip on the NAFED after unveiling a major financial scam and suspended Rs 1,275 crore fiscal package.
