Traders and sugarcane farmers from across Vadodara district had informed the Gujarat government about ongoing malpractices in sugar cooperatives over the last three years.

In a series of letters written since 2004, the members of the Central Gujarat Chamber of Commerce (CGCC) had cited the lack of an open tender system as the main reason for discrepancies in sugar cooperatives.

According to the Vadodara police, the period incidentally coincides with the time when sugarcane scam accused, the then chairman of Vadodara District Sugarcane Growers’ Cooperative Union, Jaykant Patel and then vice-chairman, Devendra Thakkar, had reportedly started siphoning off funds.

In a series of the letters (the copy of which is with The Indian Express), the then president of the Central Gujarat Chambers of Commerce, Chetan Patel, written to Gujarat Agriculture Minister Bhupendra Chudasama, on June 23, 2005, had demanded introduction of an open tender system in cooperative unions to bring transparency in transactions. “However, it (the suggestion) was not taken into consideration by the minister or the department of sugar. The inaction in the matter has now led to this scam in the district amounting to Rs 18.7 crore,” said Patel.

Earlier in 2004, CGCC chairman Rampal Gupta, in two letters addressed to Agriculture Minister Bhupendra Chudasama, had demanded an end to the agent system and advised the department to follow the open system as practised in Maharashtra. According to Patel, in Vadodara district, even now monopoly is enjoyed by an agent who is reportedly a beneficiary of the sugarcane scam accused.

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