By Paojel Chaoba
IMPHAL, November 17: Funds for increasing milk production in the state had been misappropriated by certain officials involved with the operations of the Manipur Milk Producers Co-operative Union.
While the tenure of the Board of Directors of the Union continue to be extended in the name of conducting elections, the Board has not presented the audited statement of accounts for the last five years.
In 1991, Dr M Nara, the then Minister of Veterinary and Animal Husbandry had initiated and organized Dairy Co-operative Societies in the State under the National Diary Development Board (NDDB).
After the Milk Union was formed, the Central Diary Plant at Porompat was then jointly operated and machineries were renovated from the funds.
The working of the Union was to be conducted under the Veterinary Department and projects were sanctioned from the Centre since 1997. The Veterinary Director was the ex-officio Managing Director of the Manipur Milk Producers’ Co-operative Union then. The board of directors has an official term of three years and for every new term, election is to be held.
There have been several complaints from milk farmers since the 5th Board of Directors had taken charge and many financial irregularities have cropped up.
It has been alleged that new Women Dairy Co-operative Societies were formed by the Board of directors and enrolled as members of the Union. The Societies are represented by the family members of the Board of directors which is said to be a clear violation of Manipur Co-operative Societies Act 1976 (From a family no two members can represent in similar trade or in two different societies of same trade). With the strength of the new members, the former Board of Directors was elected for the second term and which is the 5th Board.
It was learnt that the Board could not present the audited account of the Union for the last five years nor were any annual general body meetings held during the time. The audit was done collectively on April 19, 2012.
The tenure of the Board which expired on in 2011 has also been extended twice as per order of the Registrar (Co-operative Dept.).
The reason for extending the tenure was to enable them to conduct elections but which is still not carried out. Rather, the bye-laws of the Union have been amended in spite of objections raised from the Union members in the Special GB meeting held on 11 October last.
According to documents available with IFP, financial irregularities and non compliance of the IDDP-II (Project name funded by Agriculture Ministry) has been detected.
Under the project of Cattle Induction Programme, a sum of Rs 67,10,955 was invested for buying cows. It is a revolving fund and has to be recovered from the beneficiaries (milk producer member of the dairy societies).
However, the amount which was invested since 2007 according to the audit statements mentions that only Rs 2,95,500 has been recovered in the year. The recovered amount is not indicated as cash in hand or as deposited in the bank. Thus, the amount has been misutilised.
In another provision, fund have been earmarked to make available cattle feed to the farmers and is also a revolving fund. Out of Rs 13,04,270 invested in feed in 2007-08, only Rs 75,298 was recovered. The exhaustion of revolving funds is also indicated by the amount left for the Union at the banks. From the audit statements from 2007 till 2011, the Union incurred a loss of nearly 3 crores. A sum of Rs 9,84,729 was the net loss for 2010-2011.
Another detail is that there was no bank transaction for the year 2010-2011 in the Union bank account. Neither was there any deposit made to the account for receipt of IDDP funds which point that the fund may have been deposited in a private account.
It has been alleged that the present Managing Director, S Shantikumar Singh in collusion with the Board of Directors is mismanaging the Union and violating the norms. A government order made on October 8 last had appointed Dr S Joute as the new MD to replace Shantikumar. But the charge has not been handed over as the Union chairman and directors have submitted a petition in court challenging the Government order.
It may be mentioned that the Milk Union functions under the Co-operation department and the funds are financed from the Agriculture Ministry directly to the Union. The utilization certificate is approved by the state Veterinary department.