Cooperators! Bestow awards carefully!

The incident of Artha Tatwa multi-state cooperative society in Odisha is an eye-opener. One must be extra-vigilant while bestowing award on an individual or a cooperative society. For, one never knows he may land in trouble as did the BJD MLA Pravat Tripathy, Chairman of Odisha State Cooperative Union.

It is a classic case of how a fraud is committed. A person named Pradeep Sethi opens a cooperative society by enlisting some gullible members, applies for multi-state status and succeeds in getting it.

His next step is winning the trust of the people and he does it by first seeking recognition from the Odisha State Cooperative Union. In an uncommon haste State Co-op Union lost no time in decorating him with the Best Youth Cooperator Award in 2010. Plenty for him to pass as a genuine person for the public! Is not it?

Having established his name, the cool fraudster goes on a cheating spree and collects huge money from Bhuveneshwar and the areas around.

He puts up big banners of him winning the award to convince people that he is a genuine man. Since the award has sort of the seal of the state govt he looked convincing.

Now CBI wants to know from the Odisha State Cooperative Union as to how Sethi was chosen. How many applications had come and who all recommended Sethi’s name? In short, the casualness in choosing awardees’ has come in for a sharp questioning by the CBI, a lesson for other cooperative organizations that bestow annual awards.

The agency is not ready to believe that anybody can bag an award within a span of 15 days of being nominated as chairman.

The probe agency has in its possession the application submitted by Artha Tatwa for the award as well as records indicating how in a rather unseemly haste the Odisha State Cooperative Union (OSCU) went through the motions of considering it.

Our readers had doubted him right from the start. We received numerous queries on the authenticity of the Artha Tatwa multi state cooperative society. Our expert Mr I C Naik advised readers to find it either from the office of the Central Registrar or through the RTI as it is beyond the scope of this news portal to know the details of each and every cooperative active in this vast country.