Search
Close this search box.

Goa Dairy High Level Corruption Exposed – Who is Responsible for This?

Corruption in the government departments is not new in our country and Goa is not left behind in it. There are many stories of corruption, right from the Police Departments
Share
Share
Share
Share
Share

Corruption in the government departments is not new in our country and Goa is not left behind in it. There are many stories of corruption, right from the Police Departments to the Judiciary, that had been exposed in the past by the media, and now it is the turn of Goa Dairy. According to reports, the Managing Director of Goa Dairy had been relieved from his duties and kept under suspension. The administrator appointed by the government has been authorised to terminate the MD Dr N C Sawant for the irregularities and corrupt practices. How come such big level corruption took place in GD and who is responsible for this? Let us take a look at the detailed report here.

The story began with the assistant manager of Goa Dairy getting caught red-handed while accepting a bribe of Rs. 40,000 from the contractor. According to the sources, The anti-corruption branch (ACB) of the Directorate of Vigilance on Monday detained Vinayak Dharwadkar, an assistant manager with the engineering department of Goa State Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union (Goa Dairy), for allegedly demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs 40,000 to issue work orders for a Union government project for electrification work of the dairy. (Source: TOI)

“Dharwardkar had demanded Rs 5 lakh as bribe from the contractor to issue a work order for supplying, installing and commissioning a transformer, projection gear, LT panel, MCC and push button station in the plant at the cost of Rs 52 lakh,” Priyanka Kashyap, superintendent of police (ACB), said.

Initially the action taken by the ACB was welcomed by the Dairy chairman Rajesh K Phaldesai and managing director N C Sawant making sure of keeping themselves out of this, but despite of that government had decided to dissolve the board of directors of the Goa State Co-operative Milk Producers Union Ltd, which is also known as Goa Dairy, for irregularities and mismanagement, appointing senior government officer Damodar Morajkar as the administrator of the dairy.

Meanwhile, the Registrar of Co-operative Societies Sanjiv Gadkar on Friday passed an order to this effect. The order has said, “The directors – Dhananjay Desai, Vithoba Desai, Baburao Desai, Naresh Malik, Gurudas Parab, Madhav Sahakari and Rajendra Sawal – are hereby disqualified to continue on the board of director of the Goa State Cooperative Milk Producers Union Limited (Goa Dairy) under Section 59 (11) of the Goa Cooperative Act.” “Both the inspection reports have found discrepancies in the working of the society which are irregular, illegal in nature and detrimental to the interest of the society,” the order has said the order does not remained limited to the present board of directors alone, the reports said that even the former directors, Shrikant Naik, Vijaykant Gaonkar, Shivanand Pednekar and Ulhas Sinari are also been held responsible for the loss caused to the society over the purchases of fill-packed machine, ice cream plant machinery, recruitment of staff and the purchase of raw material for cattle feed plant, which will be determined and countrified by filing separate misappropriation under Section 82 of the act.

The Registrar of Co-operative Societies also stated that that detailed inquiry will be conducted by the competent authority against the assistant registrar of cooperative societies, Ponda zone, for misguiding or failing to guide the board of directors over the procurement and the recruitment. “The managing director Dr N C Sawant is wholly responsible for the irregularities and mismanagement and therefore shall be placed under suspension by the board of director/administrator and conduct a detailed inquiry and initiate the disciplinary inquiry for irregularities and corrupt practices and terminate him accordingly.” said the order.

An investigation revealed the existence of irregularities and corruption in the co-operative society for a long time but why the authorities waited so long to take action against them is not yet cleared. According to the RCS (Registrar of Co-operative society), they had received the complaint from one of the directors alleging the irregularities in the management of the Goa Dairy for at least a year.

Based on the complaint the government appointed a chartered accountant to conduct a thorough inquiry into the allegations and functioning of the Goa Dairy, and to their shock, the report submitted by the inquiry officer had exposed the mass irregularities and mismanagement in the purchase of machines. Besides, the Goa Dairy failed to constitute a selection committee as per the bye-law for recruiting employees, the report had claimed.

The inquiry also revealed that the committee for procurement arbitrarily decided the vendor for the supply of raw material for cattle feed plant without following proper procedure, and unjustified payment was made for purchasing milk from outside the state.

The above examples are sufficient enough to expose the people responsible for the mass corruption and irregularities in Goa Dairy. There are many more government departments which also needs a thorough cleanup just like Goa Dairy and the media will soon expose them one by one. What are your views on this report? Please share your valuable suggestions on this serious issue. 

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Share
Share
Share
Share
Share