Govt gives clean chit to Nafed MD, sacks Additional MD

The Agriculture Ministry today gave a clean chit to Nafed Managing Director C V Anand Bose, who was sacked by the cooperative major last week for alleged misuse of funds and misconduct.

The ministry has also decided to remove Nafed Additional Director P K Sharma, who was asked to take over as Acting Managing Director by the board, for involving some of his relatives in the cooperative business.

"We have verified and enquired the complaint against Anand Bose. We have found nothing against him. Legally, he will continue as NAFED MD till the board requests for a new MD," Minister of State for Agriculture K V Thomas told PTI.

Last week, the Nafed board, chaired by Bijendar Singh, took a unilateral decision to repatriate Bose and had asked the ministry to send a fresh panel of the probables. Bose had refuted the allegations, saying that he was paying the price for his crusade against corruption.

Terming the board meeting as "illegal", the minister said Bose was sent to Nafed on request and its board could not take a decision on sacking him at its will.

"Sharma can't continue the service as Additional Managing Director at Nafed as we have found he had involved some of his relatives in the cooperative business," Thomas said, adding that the Agriculture Ministry has written to its Forest counterpart as Sharma is on deputation.

"We have written to the Forest Ministry and he will have to face the consequences," he said.

Thomas also asked the cooperative to function as per the law or else, the Centre would stop supporting it.

"The Centre has decided to give Rs 1,200 crore as aid to Nafed for its revival. If it does not function as per the government's law, then we may have to re-think giving the aid," he said.

The government wants to revive Nafed and strengthen it as a procurement agency for farmers and they can't use its platform to run other businesses, Thomas added.

"If Nafed has any problem, they can write to us and sort it out. The urgent need to have clean administration at Nafed, we are not biased on this issue," he said.