Paddy Procurement Fraud Exposed in Jabalpur: Police Register FIRs Against 74 Suspects

Biggest Crackdown on Paddy Scam in Jabalpur: FIRs Filed Against 74 People

Jabalpur – In the biggest action yet against fraud in paddy procurement, transportation, and milling, the administration has cracked down hard. Acting on the orders of Collector Deepak Saxena, FIRs have been registered against 74 people across 12 police stations in the district.

Government Employees, Millers, and Society Officials Under Scanner

Those booked include 13 government employees, 17 rice millers, and 44 employees from 25 cooperative societies. As soon as the news of the crackdown spread, panic set in among those involved, and many turned off their mobile phones and went underground.

Fake Procurement and Sale of Crores Worth of Paddy

Investigations have revealed shocking details—employees of the Madhya Pradesh State Civil Supplies Corporation allegedly collaborated with millers and cooperative societies to manipulate records. They falsely showed paddy procurement, transportation, and release orders on paper.

• Around ₹30.14 crore worth of paddy was fraudulently documented as purchased.
• Out of this, ₹14 crore worth of paddy was sold in the local Jabalpur market, while the remaining ₹16 crore was falsely uploaded on the online portal.

Middlemen Played a Key Role in the Scam

Instead of delivering paddy to designated mills in Gwalior, Ujjain, Morena, Mandla, and Maneri, it was sold to local middlemen. Fake transportation records were created to show paddy being moved in trucks, but investigations found that:

• No toll tax was paid by these trucks.
• Toll booth cameras never captured any movement of the supposed vehicles.

The investigation team checked vehicle movement through NHAI toll plazas and also verified truck details through the transport department. The findings confirmed that the trucks never passed through the designated routes.

Government Officials and Millers Caught in the Web

Further investigation linked several officials, employees, and millers directly to the scam. Instead of transporting paddy, 17 millers sold it locally in Jabalpur itself. The scam involved officials from the Madhya Pradesh State Civil Supplies Corporation, procurement center operators, and computer operators.

• 18 out of 17 millers (yes, even more than the registered ones!) created completely fake transportation records.
• 25 cooperative societies, along with civil supplies officials, manipulated records to falsely show paddy being sold in other districts.
• 12 criminal cases have been registered under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955.

571 Trucks of Fake Paddy Shown in Records

The scale of fraud is massive:

• 17 millers falsely recorded 571 truckloads of paddy.
• Vehicles listed for paddy transportation were actually small cars, not trucks.
• 324 fake delivery orders (DOs) were issued on the online portal, covering around 14,000 metric tons of paddy.
• Toll records from Mohtara, Bahoripar, Saliwada, and Shahpura were analyzed, proving no actual transport happened.

Jabalpur’s Middlemen Played a Big Role

The fraud was orchestrated with the help of middlemen who brought millers from other districts to Jabalpur and arranged meetings with government clerks, procurement officers, and society managers.

• These middlemen earned commissions of ₹1,000 per sack of paddy to ensure smooth operations.
• The bribe money was divided among various officials and brokers.
• Several procurement committee members were also involved, and though they have not been officially named yet, a secret investigation is underway against them.

What’s Next?

With FIRs filed and investigations in full swing, authorities are now hunting for the accused. The police have already conducted multiple raids and are tracking down those who have gone underground. This paddy scam, worth crores, has exposed a deep nexus between government officials, rice millers, and middlemen, and more names are expected to come out in the coming days.