2 held, 50 places raided: CBI busts racket involving grains

Under Operation Kanak, CBI mounted surveillance on several key persons since May and found that huge amounts were being paid to FCI officials for concealing illegal activities in the procurement and supply of foodgrains, said one of the people, a CBI officer who asked not to be named.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has unearthed a corruption racket involving Food Corporation of India (FCI) officials of various ranks, rice millers, grain merchants and middlemen in the procurement, storage and distribution of foodgrains across several parts of north India, people familiar with the development said on Wednesday.

The federal agency was running an undercover operation, “Kanak” since May 2022 to uncover this nexus, in which huge bribes were allegedly by private millers/grain merchants. (PTI)

The federal agency was running an undercover operation, “Kanak” since May 2022 to uncover this nexus, in which huge bribes were allegedly by private millers/grain merchants.

Under Operation Kanak, CBI mounted surveillance on several key persons since May and found that huge amounts were being paid to FCI officials for concealing illegal activities in the procurement and supply of foodgrains, said one of the people, a CBI officer who asked not to be named.

The agency found that a chain of officers -- from technical assistant to executive director -- in FCI were involved in the racket, the people cited above added.

After acquiring enough intelligence on the irregularities, a first information report (FIR) was registered on Tuesday against 74 people and entities, including 34 serving and three retired officers of FCI, 17 private individuals, 20 rice mills and grain merchants, and raids were launched at over 50 locations in Punjab, Haryana and Delhi, the people said.

Calls made to FCI were not answered.

“This operation was being carried out against an unholy corrupt nexus, in which some officials of FCI were showing undue favours to private millers and foodgrain merchants in the procurement of low quality foodgrains, by showing more procurement on paper than what is available in the depots, covering up the irregularities detected during inspection and testing in the award of tender for development, construction and running of silo complexes,”added this officer.

“As part of the channelized corruption, bribes were regularly being collected from private millers and foodgrain merchants through a network of officials working at the ground level,” the officer said.

The FCI is India’s main state-run grain handling agency. It is primarily responsible for procuring, or purchasing paddy, wheat and other farm produce from farmers at minimum support prices and stocking them for subsidized distribution countrywide under the public distribution system. The FCI procures up to 40% of the country’s cereal output through a network of aggregation centres in agricultural mandis (markets). It pays farmers directly in their accounts. The cost of purchasing, storing and distributing these foodgrains is the Centre’s food subsidy bill, which is expected to be ₹4 lakh crore in the current fiscal year.

“Huge amount of bribe was allegedly paid to FCI officials for extending favours to the private nexus operators. The private rice millers and grain merchants were allegedly paying bribes to FCI officials for getting favours in accommodating procurement of low quality foodgrains, malpractices in day-to-day operations in unloading of foodgrains etc,” a CBI spokesperson said, on the condition of anonymity.

“The (FCI) officials allegedly in conspiracy with rice millers covered up the shortages in stocks and accepted low quality foodgrains which were transported across the country. The rice millers in turn allegedly paid huge bribes to the FCI officials, including technical assistants, DGM, AGM, and even executive director, as part of channelized corruption,” said the spokesperson.

CBI teams have recovered cash worth ₹80 lakh in the raids, which are likely to continue till Thursday, a second CBI officer said on condition of anonymity. One of the key officials raided by CBI includes FCI executive director Sudeep Singh, in New Delhi. CBI suspects that some officials in Punjab government may also be involved in the racket, said the CBI officer quoted above.