Controverial senior IAS officer Ashok Khemka today contested Haryana government's claim that his tenure as chief of the Haryana Seed Development Corporation had seen a drop in profits, saying he had "consciously stopped cheating" other agencies.
Khemka was the Managing Director of Haryana Seed Development Corporation (HSDC) from October 15, 2012 to April 4, 2013. He was transferred to HSDC after he, as the Special Collector, land acquisition, cancelled the mutation of the land deal between UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra and real estate major DLF.
"....The main reason for the profit during the year 2012-13 is an abnormal increase in the market rates of guar seed, which was sold by HSDC during May 2012, when Vikas Yadav was the Managing Director, HSDC," an official release said.
"The Corporation earned a profit of Rs 341 lakh (Rs 3.41 crore) on the sale of guar seed alone. This profit got further reduced to Rs 175.96 lakh (Rs 1.76 crore) during the tenure of Ashok Khemka. Therefore, Khemka cannot claim the credit for the good performance of his predecessor," the release said.
During Khemka's period, HSDC rather suffered a net loss of Rs 56 lakh on account of interest for only three months (January to March 2013) on huge unsold quantity of 87,000 quintals of certified wheat seed worth Rs 22 crore, it said.
Khemka on his part in an e-mail to the media countered the state government's statement though he said his "views are personal."
"Why are authorities peeved with record profits of HSDC during 2012-13 and projecting the record profit as a loss? It is celebration time to reward farmer-growers of HSDC and not berate Ashok Khemka," he said.
HSDC' profit was reduced, Khemka said because he had "consciously stopped cheating other state/central agencies by lending HSDC's name to seed supplies of a private middleman at 3 per cent commission."
"I would say that eliminating corruption has unlimited possibilities for the citizens of the nation," he added.
