CAG facts revive fodder scam memories
With the CAG reports repeatedly highlighting massive financial mismanagement by the Nitish Kumar-led JD(U)-BJP government in Bihar and calls for a CBI probe gaining momentum, comparisons are being drawn between these virtual scams and the Rs 1,000-crore fodder scam in the mid-1990s.
The latest CAG report for 2008-2009, tabled in the two houses of the Bihar legislature on Friday, revealed various instances of misappropriation and loss of government money to the tune of Rs 380.99 crore. Like the CAG report tabled in the Assembly last year, which had highlighted absence of expenditure details for Rs 11,412 crore withdrawn by the state governments between 2002 and 2008, the latest report said an additional Rs 2,384 crore was withdrawn for various schemes but bills for only Rs 77.27 crore were submitted.
Especially the irregularities detected in delivery of 3,115.66 quintals of foodgrain worth Rs 25 lakh meant for the flood-affected people in 2008-2009 have prompted Bihar watchers and Opposition leaders to compare the evident fraud with the 14-year-old fodder scam, which eventually led to RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav’s resignation as chief minister.
Like in the fodder scam, in which the CBI found registration numbers of two-wheelers having been fraudulently passed off as four-wheelers by many fodder suppliers who never really made any supply, transporters entrusted with carrying foodgrain to the flood-affected people gave the registration numbers of two-wheelers trying to pass them off as the four-wheelers used in the transportation.
In its audit of the records of the supply of foodgrains to the flood-affected people, the CAG found mention of a scooter that was stated to have carried 92.49 quintals of foodgrains and three other motorcycles said to have carried 274.15 quintals of foodgrains.
“The modus operandi of embezzling public money meant for the poor has been the same both during the RJD regime and Nitish Kumar’s so-called sushashan (goog governance). The scams tumbling out of the CAG cupboard are akin to the Rs 1,000-crore fodder scam, but they are far bigger and deeper than that,” said Bihar Congress spokesman Premchand Mishra.
Despite the Patna high court’s stay on its previous order for a CBI probe into the CAG’s findings of Rs 11,412 crore withdrawn without any documentary proof of expenditure, all the Opposition parties on Saturday stepped up their demand for a CBI probe.
“The scams during the Nitish government are so big and so many that only a CBI probe is a must. We will demand a CBI probe,” said RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, who still remains an accused in the fodder scam.
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