CAG reports sometimes lead to the unearthing of explosive scandals. The CAG reports on the allocation of spectrum to "telecom" companies and allocation of coal blocks to "infrastructure" companies resulted in the unraveling of the notorious 2G and coal block scams. Another CAG report on the Delhi airport privatization was no less damning and damaging. But the beneficiary of this alleged "scam", the GMR group seems to have escaped sustained scrutiny. And then, the CAG report on the Krishna Godavari gas basins involving Reliance Industries Ltd continues to raise questions. But not all CAG reports, no matter how damning, lead to sustained media scrutiny and hysterical debates on prime time TV.
One such report that looks destined to be buried is a CAG report on how an at least Rs 40,000 crore scam in the procurement and milling of paddy for the public distribution system that seems to be going on since the last five years. Congress leaders were busy screaming "vendetta politics" when this report was tabled in the Parliament on December 8, 2015. So it has gone largely unnoticed. This author could not see any detailed news report or any debate over the scam in any channel yesterday. Fortunately, most newspapers have carried prominent stories today about the report. But make no mistake, the disruption of Parliament, the fate of the benighted GST Bill, the public swagger of the Gandhis and Indo-Pak cricket will so dominate headlines that nothing further would be heard about this particular CAG report.
Yet, this report provides a crystal clear example of how cronyism, ad hocism and corruption continue to flourish in the socialist paradise that is India. It also reveals how tens of thousands of crores continue to be looted in the name of the poor. Here are some facts. Between 2009-10 and 2013-14, Rs 17,985.49 crores was paid in the form of minimum support prices to farmers who were in all probability fictitious. According to the CAG report, these payments were made to farmers without proof of land holdings, without proof of bank accounts and without procurement certificates. In simple language, these were "ghost" farmers and Rs 18,000 crores was looted in their name in this time period. That's not all. The CAG report says it computes the figure of Rs 18,000 crores after looking into the procurement process in the states of Andhra Pradesh (now Andhra and Telangana), Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. How much bigger would be the extent of this "ghost" payment scam if the CAG conducts a rigorous scrutiny of procurement practices in all states?
The CAG report also highlights how rice millers were delivered a bonanza by the procurement process. It examined the operations of a cross section of the millers in the four states of Andhra Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Telengana and Uttar Pradesh. What did it discover? Millers in these four states benefited from "excess net realization" of Rs 3,743 crores. The sample scrutinized by the CAG represents merely 15% of the total in the country. If we assume that other millers too benefited from the same levels of "excess net realization", the money siphoned away by rice mills amounts to more than Rs 40,000 crores. Even more interesting, the CAG report talks about exorbitant transport charges and details how the number plates of trucks that allegedly transported the paddy belonged to scooters and motorcycles. What's more, another "sample survey" conducted by the CAG in selected districts of Bihar, Odisha, Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Telangana revealed that rice valued at Rs 7570.78 crores was never delivered back by rice mills to the Food Corporation of India and other state agencies responsible for public distribution of subsidized rice. No action was taken against them. Once again, if a nationwide wide survey is conducted, the amount of the loot would be significantly higher.
Tens of thousands of farmers have been committing suicide every year in the meanwhile. In 2015, there has been a significant spike in suicides of sugarcane farmers, particularly in Karnataka which lags far behind Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra in sugarcane production. And yet, according to available data, sugar mills have not paid dues worth Rs 22,000 crores to sugarcane farmers as of 2015. Meanwhile, the government t is luring thousands of crores into the coffers of sugar mills to help them clear their dues to farmers. This author wonders what a future CAG audit of this would reveal.
