In an interesting sequel to the recent developments at the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation (Nafed), the government has appointed a new managing director to head the cooperative. C V Ananda Bose, the former managing director who was dismissed by the federation’s board for alleged misuse of funds, is learnt to have opted out after being recently empanelled to the rank of a secretary.
Sanjeev Chopra, an IAS officer of the 1985 batch from the West Bengal cadre, has been appointed managing director. Prior to this posting, Chopra was a joint secretary in the agriculture ministry. “Bose has opted to go out, as he has been empanelled to the secretary rank. The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet is likely to find an appropriate posting for Bose soon,” said an official in the agriculture ministry.
Bose is also the chairman of the Coconut Development Board.
On July 9, the Nafed board, under its chairman Bijender Singh (who is also a Congress MLA in the Delhi Assembly), took a unilateral decision to remove Bose, a 1977 batch IAS officer of the Kerala cadre, from his position as the managing director. Bose had refuted the allegations saying that he was paying the price for his crusade against corruption in the cooperative.
The Board had also placed P K Sharma, the federation’s additional managing director, as its managing director. However, on July 12, the government gave a clean chit to Bose and said that Bose will continue to head Nafed. It also said that the Board could not remove an officer (in this case Bose) appointed by the government and had no rights to appoint an MD of Nafed on its own.
It is also learnt that on July 12 Singh had offered to resign from the federation’s chairmanship before Minister of State for Agriculture K V Thomas. However, his offer was not accepted since Singh is not a government official and was elected a chairman by the members of the cooperative.
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On Wednesday, the Delhi High Court, in response to a public interest litigation against Nafed’s 2003 tie-up business, asked the government to frame guidelines for restructuring the board of the loss-making cooperative.
During the year 2003-04, Nafed joined hands with certain companies for an import venture, wherein it provided a bank guarantee of Rs 3,900 crore to 29 companies, most of whom defaulted, and left the cooperative with a loss of Rs 1,600 crore. Since then, the cooperative is servicing the loans and an annual interest liability of Rs 150 crore is eating into its profits. The Court also slammed Nafed for financing private companies outside its mandate.