The Sugar Department will conduct quarterly audits of all sugarcane cooperatives in Gujarat in the wake of the Rs 18.7 crore scam involving two former office-bearers and 30 others of the Vadodara District Sugarcane Growers’ Cooperative Union board.

According to senior officials, the scam was unearthed during the re-audit of the cooperative’s last two years’ accounts.

“Before, we had audited the accounts from 2005 to 2007. Then it was fine, but later some bogus entries were found. We then decided to ask for a re-audit of the sugar mills owned by the accused, former chairman Jaykant Patel and former vice president Devendra Thakkar,” said Director of Sugar G K Fakir.

He said that the audits were not done on a quarterly basis before. Meanwhile, officials from the Sugar Department admitted that the lack of an open tender system could be one of the reasons behind the scam.

“But its not the only one. There are several discrepancies in the accounts. So, we have decided to start quarterly audits of all the cooperatives,” said Fakir.

Meanwhile, Bodeli Circle Inspector V I Patel said: “It is a tedious job to match all the account statements. We have recovered 25 coupons from Patel’s house that belong to the cooperative.”