The Gujarat Government has constituted an inquiry commission under a retired High Court Judge to probe the alleged multi-crore scam at the groundnut warehouse fires in the State.
Announcing the constitution of a probe commission, the Minister of State for Home, Pradipsinh Jadeja, said, "The Chief Minister, Vijay Rupani, has decided to take strong action against those guilty. Under his direction, a probe commission is constituted under the Commissions of Inquiry Act. A judicial inquiry commission under the retired High Court Judge justice HK Rathod has been set up for the same."
Notably, the State Government faced severe criticism after four godowns containing groundnuts, procured between October 2017 to February 2018, caught fires under suspicious conditions. Also, there were allegations of adulterated stocks of groundnut where pebbles and sand were found in the groundnut sacks.
The Opposition Congress had launched a massive protest campaign under the leadership of Paresh Dhanani, Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, who sat on a hunger strike alleging scam worth about Rs 4,000 crore in groundnut procurement and seeking probe for the same.
The CID, which is currently investigating the alleged scam, will handover its findings before the commission.
Jadeja further said, "The Government will not spare anybody involved in the scam. So far, 30 people have been arrested and others will be face the action as per the law. The commission report will bring out the truth."
In October 2017, the National Agricultural Co-operative Marketing Federation (Nafed) through State nodal agencies such as Gujarat State Co-operative Cotton Federation and others had started procurement of groundnut after the prices fell much below the MSP of RS 4,450 a quintal. The State Government had announced additional bonus of Rs 50 per quintal.
After the bumper crop of 32 lakh tonnes, agencies had procured about 8.30 lakh tonnes of groundnut worth about Rs 3600 crore.