Jaipur/New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate is set to register a money laundering case to probe alleged irregularities worth Rs 2,000 crore in the implementation of the mid-day meal scheme in Rajasthan under the previous Congress government, official sources said Saturday.
The Rajasthan Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) January 7 filed an FIR in the case and named 21 accused, including certain retired officials of the Rajasthan Cooperative Consumer Federation Ltd. (CONFED), some private persons and firms under various sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act, Indian Penal Code and the Rajasthan Transparency in Public Procurement Act.
The 22-page FIR reviewed by PTI states that the case emerges from a reference sent by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in 2024 into the alleged irregularities and corruption in providing dry ration packets containing pulses, cooking oil and spices to eligible schoolchildren in the state.
More than 3 crore students studying in classes 1-8 were stated to have been provided dry ration packets in five phases between 2020-23 and the Rajasthan government spent Rs 2,023.91 crore on this, according to the ACB FIR.
The federal probe agency sent the reference to the ACB under Section 66(2) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), under which it is empowered to share information regarding an offence with police or a designated law enforcement agency.
The ED, in its communication, claimed to have unearthed evidence related to alleged corruption of more than Rs 2,000 crore in the implementation of the mid-day meal scheme in the state between 2020-23.
The sources said the ED had registered an ECIR (enforcement case information report, which is equivalent to a police FIR) in this case during 2023, but the state police closed the primary case against the accused, leading to the closure of its PMLA case.
The central agency then sent the evidence it had collected to the ACB in 2024 and now the state agency has filed an FIR. A fresh money laundering case will soon be registered so that the “scam” can be unearthed, potential proceeds of crime can be attached and accused persons can be prosecuted under the anti-money laundering law, the sources said.
Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee president Govind Singh Dotasra Friday refuted allegations of wrongdoing in this case by the former Ashok Gehlot-led government.
Dotasra accused the BJP-led state government of creating a “false narrative” to malign the bureaucracy and “divert attention” from its own failures.
According to the ACB FIR, the entire procurement process for the mid-day meal food packets — from decision-making delays, inflated pricing, delayed supplies, non-existent quality control, and payments without delivery — was carried out through “deliberate” collusion between officials of the concerned government department, CONFED and private suppliers, resulting in a wrongful loss of an estimated Rs 2,000 crore to the state exchequer.
PTI
