Reacting to the news report “Nafed: Board meets but Thakur finds no supporter”, an agitated Government nominee on Nafed Board Ashok Thakur phoned to list a number of issues which were raised in the Board meeting. “Please put the entire story of the meeting before your readers”, said Thakur.
Thakur said he had raised several issues to which the Chairman had no answer. The matter mostly related to groundnut procurement in Gujarat. “Nafed cannot wash its hands off by saying that all the wrong-doings were done by state agencies as they were the ones assigned to the job; if we cannot monitor the process why should we charge 1.5 per cent from the govt, he is said to have asked.
I also raised the issue of investigating the role of insiders in the scam by constituting our own internal investigative committee, Thakur raised the second point.
Thakur is also said to have raised the issue of interpreting the central govt guidelines on the issue of coordinating with the state govt correctly. “The guidelines say Nafed would appoint agency in consultation with the state govt; nowhere does it say that the state govt decision would be final in the matter”, Thakur summarized. In fact, in the case of disagreement Nafed would have the last word, he underlined.
Raising other issues related to Nafed Ashok Thakur also talked about duel membership. How can Nafed and NCCF which are competitors be members in each other’s organizations? “There is a need to reopen the matter even at the level of Central Registrar if he has given approval to this amendment in the byelaws”, he stated.
Nafed also flouts the very basic tenet of democracy in co-operative which is one person-one vote. Thakur lamented that a single person is a member of district federation, state federation and then national federation. He votes at 7 places and chooses many Directors- making a joke of cooperative principles, he said.
“I also disagree with the Chairman on the issue of confirmation of minutes of the last meeting in which I had not participated. The chairman refused to take my objection which is not a valid stand. The fact that the confirmation is sought from the next meeting means, an absent member can also react”, he summed up.