On Thursday, the Congress party claimed that it has exposed a Rs 4,600-crore food scam of the centre and had added that the Modi government had changed the rules of the auction in 2018 under a scheme to provide pulses to the poor and armed forces only to benefit certain “few big millers”.
Addressing a press conference, senior party leader and Rajya Sabha member Abhishek Manu Singhvi had said that the alleged scam has exposed the “real face” of the Narendra Modi government and demanded a full disclosure as well as punishment for those involved. At the press conference, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi had also claimed that the CAG had allegedly found how NAFED allowed only big millers to swindle tonnes of pulses meant for the poor with the conventional auction rules rewritten.
“Here is a government which is cheating over food products and allowing crooks to exploit something as basic as pulses. We have to thank Covid as this scam might not be unearthed so easily. With Covid, there was thought of distributing pulses for free or low cost, and it unearthed this scam,” Singhvi had alleged in the press conference.
In response, the government sources speaking to OpIndia have given a point-to-point rebuttal to the claims made by the Congress party leadership. The centre has dismissed the charges made by Congress and added that there are no such allegations or reports put out by the CAG, but the figures quoted are only imaginary.
Speaking to OpIndia, government sources said that there was no authenticity in the claims made by the Congress party as there is no such policy of favouring any millers. The government has also clarified that NAFED did the supply of milled pulses through competitive bidding on the basis of the outturn ratio (OTR) adopted from the beginning.
Here is a list of claims made by senior Congress leader Singhvi and the detailed response by the centre on the allegations that the government had committed an Rs.4,600 scam in the supply of pulses:
First claim: Modi government’s ministers have accumulated wealth for eight years by snatching away pulses from the common people
In response to the claim, the government sources have said that there is no question of snatching away daal meant for the common people. It also said that the government provided over 14 Lakh MT of daal to beneficiary households for eight months in 2020 and stranded migrant worker households for two months free of cost through the PDS system of States and Union Territories amid the Covid-19 Pandemic.
Second claim: Govt made NAFED change the policy to favour selected millers to make daal
The government has dismissed such charges saying that there was no authenticity in the claims made by the Congress party as there is no such policy of favouring any millers. The government has also clarified that NAFED did the supply of milled pulses in 2017 for the first time, and the millers were selected through competitive bidding on the basis of the outturn ratio (OTR) adopted from the beginning.
Third claim: Centre removed the L1 provision and the provisions of the minimum amount of pulses extraction, which led to cartelisation
Rejecting the argument put out by the Congress Party, the government said that the bid was awarded to the miller who quoted the highest OTR, i.e, the miller who converts a given quantity of raw pulses into the highest quantity of daal through a competitive bidding process, is selected.
The government also clarified that the L1 bidding adopted by some states was to directly invite bids from millers for the supply of daal, which does not involve turning the stock of raw pulses owned by the State into milled daal (pulses).
Fourth claim: CAG report says Rs 4,600 crore in less than four years, involving 5.4 lakh tonnes of pulses
The centre has said there is no such report of CAG as claimed by the Congress party. Therefore, the figures quoted are only the imagination of the reporter, the sources contended.
The Congress party had conducted a press conference based on a report by a left-wing media entity – The Reporters’ Collective, which had claimed that the Union government’s auctions to provide pulses to the poor and armed forces, worth more than Rs 4,600 crore, were rigged to benefit a few big millers. They had cited purported findings from the National Productivity Council, headed by commerce minister Piyush Goyal.
Fifth claim: Congress claimed that the NAFED demanded the revival of the old system of providing pulses
There is no old or new system, the government sources said, adding that there is no scam as such.
Sixth claim: Scam was unearthed because of Covid as there was talk of distributing grains and pulses
The government sources said there is no scam as such as imagined by the Congress party as the supply of milled pulses to States and UTs under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana and AtmaNirbhar Bharat Scheme during 2020 was completed under the extremely challenging situation of Covid-19 pandemic when the availability of milling and logistics were limited.
