The cattle feed controversy that cost Vipul Cahudhary his job has turned funny with the GCMMF sending bill to recover Rs 22.5 crore from the Maharshtra’s Mahananda milk cooperative.
For Mahananda milk cooperative it was a gift but for the GCMMF it was a business transaction.
Readers can recall that in course of drought that lashed at Maharashtra in 2013, cattle feed worth Rs 22.5 crore had been donated to the Maharashtra’s Mahanada milk cooperative by the Gujarat milk cooperative Dudhsagar based in Mehsana.
The cattle feed was distributed amongst farmers across Maharashtra. The Maharashtra govt. had even issued advertisements in various newspapers thanking Gujarat for the donation.
Back then, Vipul Chaudhary had been chairing Dudhsagar. It turned out, however, that Chaudhary had been acting without the final consent from the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) that controls the Dudhsagar.
In view of the upcoming parliamentary poll, this has become a serious political and financial issue, since the GCMMF has sent a bill for the donation. Suspected to be a huge misappropriation of funds, the matter has been referred to the police for a thorough-going inquiry, claims an official from the Gujarat Cooperation Department.
Dudhsagar officials are denying the accusations claiming that the cattle feed was given to Maharashtra in response to an appeal from the Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar and Mahanada Dairy.
Whatever the explanations given by the Dudhsagar Cooperative, charges have been entered against its former chairman
Chaudhary and other functionaries and it is quite likely that eventually the Maharashtra milk cooperative has to pick up the tab.