Madhya Pradesh: Documents show 2 districts procured much more onion than amount produced by farmers

Madhya Pradesh's Sehore and Dhar districts procured 17,837.32 and 22,104.29 metric tonne onions respectively in excess of the amount produced by the farmers, documents accessed by India Today have shown.

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Onion.

Bhopal,UPDATED: Jul 27, 2017 18:55 IST

Onion procurement in Madhya Pradesh at the minimum support price (MSP) of Rs 8 per kg offered by the state government is getting murkier as more alarming details have emerged.

After India Today exposed the official-trader nexus that was fixing the bidding process that ultimately led to the arrest of four people including the general manager of the civil supplies corporation, it has now been learnt that two districts procured onion much more than produced by the farmers.

A circular from Dhar district collector on production of onions.

Quantity of onion produced by different districts of Madhya Pradesh.

HERE IS ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW

India Today has accessed documents that point towards a much larger scam. According to these official documents, Sehore - home district of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan - produced 76,634.32 metric tonne onions this year.
It has also been learnt that MARKFED - the agency tasked with procuring onions this year - obtained 76,634.32 metric tonne onions in 2017. This means 17,837.32 metric tonne onions, in excess of the amount produced by the farmers, was procured.
So where did this excess onion come from? According to a top source in the Economic Offences Wing (EOW), the agency that has arrested four people following the India Today investigation, middlemen and traders who had fixed the bidding process in all likelihood sold the onions to the government at Rs 8 per kg, which they had bought from the government at Rs 2 per kg, thus making a profit of Rs 6 per kg.
"If we translate the excess onion procured in Sehore alone into money at Rs 8 per kg, it amounts to something around Rs 20 crore. So this effectively means that the government dished our Rs 20 crore for onions that were never produced by farmers in just one district", the top source said.
Similar anomalies have been reported from the Dhar district where according to official figures, 65,000 metric tonne onions were produced whereas MARKFED procured 87,104.29 metric tonne onions. In Dhar, 22,104.29 metric tonne excess onions were procured.
Dhar district collector Shriman Shukla, in fact, wrote to the general manager of MARKFED on July 13 in which he expressed doubts over the procuring process, citing the excess onions that were being shown as procured in records.
India Today has accessed this letter in which Shukla wrote about the negligence and discrepancies in the procuring process.
The opposition Congress has alleged large-scale irregularities.
"The process of onion procurement by the government started after June 6 when 6 farmers were killed in police firing in Mandsaur. By that time most farmers had sold their crops at whatever prices available. Also, we saw on TV farmers destroying their crops. So where did this onion come from? It is a huge scam that can be unearthed only after a high-level enquiry", leader of Opposition Ajay Singh said while talking to India Today.