Noida Soil Testing reports take ages to come and I request you to get it sent as quickly as possible, said Jaiveer Singh, a delegate from Hapur who had come to participate in the Kribhco AGM held on Thursday in N Delhi.

Krishna Lal from Bagpat wanted parity for cane growers vis a vis cooperative in matters of rate and availability of fertilizers. Khemchand Yadav from Jaipur wanted Kribhco to stress upon bio-fertilizer more and more.

In a free for all members’ AGM, delegates put across their point of views frankly. The Vice Chairman of Kribhco Chandra Pal Singh Yadav promised to accommodate as much as possible.

It was announced on this occasion that Kribhco has earned a pretax profit of Rs. 192.16 crores during the financial year 2011-12. Buoyed by the results, it declared a dividend @ 20% for Member Cooperative Shareholders, consecutively for the 8th year on this occasion.

The annual accounts have been approved by the Society in its 32nd Annual General Body Meeting held on Thursday at NCUI Auditorium in Delhi.

Kribhco Chairman V. R. Patel, Vice Chairman, Dr Chandra Pal Singh Yadav, Managing Director B D Sinha and all the directors attended the AGM. More than 510 delegates of member cooperatives from different parts of the country also participated.

B.D.Sinha, Managing Director informed Hazira Plant has maintained good performance during the year. On marketing front, Kribhco has positioned itself strategically and is committed to fulfill the aspirations of all stakeholders, said Mr Sinha.

KRIBHCO has also diversified into Infrastructure business and established a subsidiary “KRIBHCO Infrastructure Ltd.,(KRIL)”. KRIL has established Inland Container Depot (ICD) at Hazira and Rewari. Further two more ICDs are under advanced stage of construction at Modinagar and Hindaun. KRIL has eight rakes and 1500 containers.

On this occasion, two eminent cooperators were honoured by KRIBHCO for their pioneering works. The “Sahakarita Shiromani” samman was awarded to Smt. Leeladevi R.Prasad from Karnataka and the “Sahakarita Vibhushan” samman was awarded to Shri Vitthalbhai H.Radadiya from Gujarat. Both eminent cooperators are said to have acted as catalyst for the national cooperative movement.

Karnataka has taken many an initiative to strengthen the cooperative sector including provision of Rs 643 crore for developing the credit coop societies in conformity with the recommendations of the Vaidyanathan Committee.

The state govt  would soon  amend  the  Karnataka  Cooperative Societies Act  1959 to give a leg up  to the cooperative  activities in the state,  said  Chief Minister  Jagdish  Shettar  while addressing   the  zonal  meet  organised by  Krishak  Bharati Cooperative (KRIBHCO).

Besides the Chief Minister,  Zonal meet was attended by Chairman, Vice-Chairman ,Managing Director and a host of Kribhco officials.

Mr Shettar noted over 36 thousand cooperatives have created 1.5 million jobs in the state.

A major portion of sugar production, chemical fertilizer production   and handloom weaving   is being   accomplished by the cooperative sector , chief minister remarked.

Krishak Bharati Cooperative Limited (KRIBHCO) presented  a dividend cheque amounting to Rs 20.30 crore to Mr M K Alagiri, Union Minister of Chemicals on Fertilizer in New Delhi on  Monday.

Talking to Indian Cooperative Vice Chairman of Kribhco Mr Chandra Pal said that” Kribhco has declared  a dividend at the rate of 20% for the year 2010-11 amounting to Rs. 69.29 crores out of which Rs. 20.30 crore is being paid to Government of India.”

Shri B.D.Sinha, Managing Director KRIBHCO accompanied Mr Yadav along with other officials of the cooperative. Minister Mr Alagiri,  Ajay Bhattacharya,  Secretary (Fertiliser) and other officials of Ministry were present on the occasion.

Kribhco has been expanding its base as its member cooperative societies have increased to close to 7500.We have been continuously making profit and sharing it with our share-holders, informed a beaming Chandra Pal.

During the year (2010-11) Society has earned post tax profit of Rs.200 Crore.

Soon after the appearance of a report in Indian cooperative .com that Annual General body meeting in cooperatives has reduced democracy to a farce, this correspondent was invited angrily by the Vice-Chairman Chandra Pal Singh Yadav to participate in AGM of Kribhco and report the truth.

To the utter surprise of this reporter, the AGM was conducted in “no hold barred spirit” with participants- one after another expressing themselves freely for and against the functioning of Kribhco.

One delegate named Pradip Kumar Singh who is also an MLA from Bhilwara in Rajasthan raised the question of varying rates of urea between Kribhco and other manufacturers. He brought attention of assembled office bearers to high rates of urea and requested them to rectify the anomaly.

Shashi Kant Dwivedi, another delegate from Chattisgarh lamented at the shortage of Kribhco staff in the state. He also accused Kribhco of giving step-motherly treatment to the state. Shri Kopal from Karnataka said that shortage of urea has aggravated the situation in the state. Farmers are dying in the state, Kribhco should step in to save life , he added.

A delegate from Gujarat wanted change in bylaws of Kribhco so that one delegate from every tehsil could come to participate in the AGM. To increase its representative character he said that he was ready to travel in sleeper class instead of Ac coach.

Gurmait Singh of Punjab wanted direct supply of urea to cooperative societies than to state federation.

Members after members expressed themselves freely before the AGM thereby inspiring hope that democracy is not yet dead in cooperatives. Indiancooperative.com would be only too happy to report such excellent examples  for what ultimately matters is success of  cooperative movement.

Kribhco , a premier fertiliser producing farmers cooperative society has earned a pre tax profit of  Rs. 230.26 crore during the financial year 2010-11.

The annual accounts have been approved by the Society in its 31st Annual General Body Meeting held on 22nd September,2011 presided over by Sh. V. R. Patel, Chairman, Kribhco and attended by Directors and 516 delegates of member cooperatives from different parts of the country at the NCUI auditorium, New Delhi.

The Society has declared dividend @ 20% for Member Cooperatives and Shareholders, consecutively for the 7th year.

Kribhco’s urea production during the year 2010-11 was 18.41 lakh MT which corresponds to capacity utilisation of  106.46% . The total sales of urea by Kribhco, including production of its joint venture plants at OMAN and at Shahjahanpur, UP, was to the tune of 38.23 lakh MT, which accounts for 13.54 % of the total urea consumed in the country.

The production and sale of seeds during the year was 2.48lakh qtls & 2.47 lakh qtls respectively.  The sales of other products have also been appreciable during the year  with 1.49 lakh packets of Bt cotton, 290.54 qtls of Hybrid Paddy, 1677.57 qtls of Maize, 17350 MT compost and 965 MT bio-fertilisers.

Kribhco has also diversified into Infrastructure business and established a subsidiary “Kribhco Infrastructure Ltd.”  This organisation would set up Inland Container Depot(ICD) and Container Freight Stations (CFS) and deal in Logistics.

Kribhco has revived Jetty at Hazira for faster movement of imported fertilisers. The revamping of Hazira plant  had also been undertaken, which would increase the urea production by 4.66LMT by 2011 end.

Shri B.D.Sinha, Managing Director, Kribhco, informed the gathering  during the Annual General Meeting that  Hazira Plant has maintained its good performance during the year.

On the occasion, two eminent cooperators were honoured by Kribhco for their pioneering works in promoting the cooperative movement as a catalyst for national development.  The “Sahakarita Shiromani “ was awarded to  Sh. Ramniklal Kababhai Dhami from Gujarat  and the “ Sahakarita Vibhushan” was awarded to Shri V.P.Singh  from Delhi.

Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) has forwarded shutdown notification for division 2 of Kribhco’s urea making facility in Haziara industrial region of Surat for disobedience of pollution rules.

The notification was released on July 05 by GPCB (Surat) Regional Officer A G Patel after an investigation disclosed that 14 buffaloes had lost their lives in Kribhco’s campus, after drinking infected water.

Mr. Patel stated, “We have issued closure notice for unit 2 of the urea plant of Kribhco under Section 33A of the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act 1974, for violation of pollution norms.”

“The ammoniacal nitrogen found in the discharge from the unit 2 was well above the prescribed limits,” he said, adding that the agriculturists’ cooperative has been asked to obey the environment rules in a period of fifteen of the notice.

The company functionaries buried the dead bodies in the campus without giving any information to the GPCB.

Patel also stated if Kribhco fails to go along with its notice, the unit’s electricity connection could be cut and further step could be taken.

In an interview given only to Indiancooperative.com in India by Bernhard Stormyr Information Manager / Yara International ASA, Yara International has answered several questions raised by us.

But it has suggested  us rightly  to respect the fact that there is an investigation going on, and they would not  say anything that can disturb this.

In Yara’s words “Our first priority has been, and will be, to find out exactly what has been going on. When that has been established, we will be able to speak about the consequences it will have.

Readers may be aware that the news of  kickback of 1 million dollar in failed Yara-Kribhco Joint Venture is doing rounds.

We present some excerpts of the interview

Indian Cooperative.com: The scam relates to year 2007. Why did Yara keep mum  all these long years?

Yara International: First of all, it has not been established yet what exactly has taken place. Your question concludes that there has been a scam. What we have said is that a payment has been made to an Indian consultant, and we have notified Økokrim about this. It remains to be seen if the payment to the consultant can be justified by the amount of work this person has done through 2006 and 2007. This issue and payment came to the attention to the current Yara management only recently, and we immediately informed Økokrim.

Indian Cooperative.com : It further says an internal whistleblower gave notice on this case to Yara’s management. Consequently, Yara’s Chief Compliance Officer informed the Norwegian National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime (Økokrim). Was “somebody” in Yara International not active in hiding away this information all these years? If it is so, what action has Yara taken against the same? Has any head rolled yet?

Yara International : The questions about who knew what, who did what, who authorized what is exactly the reason why we are doing an investigation and informing Økokrim. This will be established during the investigation, and we hope you understand that we do not want to speculate at this point.

Indian Cooperative.com : Who in Yara and who in Kribhco were involved in the negotiation for this joint venture?

Yara International: It is vital that the investigation is conducted as thoroughly as possible, and we do not want to comment or speculate on this at this point. The investigation will for sure conclude and show who have known and done what, and any criminal actions have been made.

Indian Cooperative.com : What was the scale of JV? I mean how huge was the failed deal?

Yara International : There was an intent to invest together with Kribhco, but the agreement did not include any financial obligations. In that sense it was not a huge deal, to use your terms.

Indian Cooperative.com : How was the money paid-cheque or cash and if possible could u tell the route thru which it came to India

Yara International: We do not want to go into detail on this, but leave it to the investigation to determine all the facts. We are cooperating fully with the Norwegian police on this.

Indian Cooperative.com: It is alright for the Police to find out the route and process involved in giving-taking the money. But there should not be any confusion regarding the name of recipient. If Yara claims to be clean, should it not reveal the name?

Yara International : As above, we do not want to comment on this at this point. But we are confident that everything will be determined through the investigation.

Indian Cooperative.com : After all it involves an important cooperative in India with avowed promise of social good. It is the money of cooperative members. The sooner it is revealed the better. It would help in taking corrective action back home in India and Yara should move forward to help cleanse the system.

Yara International : As this is not a question, I take the opportunity to point out that Yara has done everything in its power to contribute to getting to the bottom of this, by informing and cooperating with the police. We ask for your understanding that the first phase of such a process has to be to establish the facts, namely what has been going on? Can this be viewed as corruption? If so, who was involved? This is the phase the police is in now, assisted by us, and it is far too early to speak about consequences or give out names.

There are no one that wants this process to go faster than the current Yara management, but it is vital that the police can conduct their investigation in the manner they see fit, without us or anybody else “prosecuting” in the media. This is of course a difficult process for Yara and our employees, but we will just have to live with critical questions from the media for a while, and hopefully both you and other external stakeholders can see for yourself that we act responsibly, that is to get all the facts on the table.

The story of kickback in Yara-Kribhco deal to the tune of 1mn USD is refuted vehemently by the Kribhco Vice-Chairman Chandra Pal Singh Yadav. Talking to Indiancooperative.com  Mr Yadav said that the deal had  hardly taken any shape.

Yara International offered us a proposal to go in for joint venture for production of mineral fertilizer in India. Since there is shortage of prophetic fertilizer in the country, we entertained the idea in the beginning, said Mr Yadav.

We agreed only in principle not in papers. There was no financial commitment, neither was there any high level meeting with Yara, Vice-Chairman asserted.

Later they (Yara International) may have hit some roadblocks and the matter did not take off from there.

We had about 67 percent share of government at that time and thus a question of a middle man brokering the deal does not arise. We had not even a dime’s deal with them , said the leader.

Readers may be aware that  European Union Police is investigating the matter of kickback in the deal. One of the internal whistle blowers in Yara brought the secret pay off in public leading to investigation. Yara officials say that it informed the police which searched its office to get at the bottom of truth.

The investigation in Norway is still going on.

Indian government has not taken note of the matter yet and no investigation has been initiated here. Mr Chandra Pal Singh says since there is no scam , there is no  need for investigation.

Yara International which entered into failed Joint Venture with Kribhco and ended up paying a bribe of one million USD to some “Indian Consultant” has reacted to the story of Indian Cooperative.com.

We produce below mail sent by Bernhard Stormyr, Information Manager / Informasjonssjef  Yara International ASA.

Dear Ajay,

In this recent article on indiancooperative.com, you write:

“The story of revelation of one million USD pay off to an Indian Consultant in Kribhco-Yara joint venture is no different. It was also revealed by the authorities of Norway only while raiding Yara International on some other pretext not involving Kribhco.”

http://indiancooperative.com/kribcho/kribhco-scam-will-yara-turn-approver/

This is not accurate.

An internal whistleblower gave notice on this case to Yara’s management. Consequently, Yara’s Chief Compliance Officer informed The Norwegian National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime (Økokrim).

Following our warning of this issue to Økokrim, Yara’s office was searched to find evidence.

So the searching of Yara’s office was directly related to the Kribhco case, which we informed Økokrim about.

I ask that you correct the story on indiancooperative.com accordingly.

So it’s wrong to state that there was a raiding on another pretext. The pretext was information on the Kribhco case, and this information came to Økokrim from Yara.

I’d appreciate if you could do your best to verify this and update the article at your earliest convenience.

If you have sources that claim there was a raid on any other pretext, I would like to reach out to this/these sources to clarify the issue.

Regards

Bernhard Stormyr
Information Manager / Informasjonssjef
Yara International ASA

Indiancooperative.com would indeed endeavor to present the story as truthfully as it can. Editorial Board seeks apology if there indeed had been omission of facts-Editor

Indian tax authorities can never find out cases of corruption. Whenever high profile corruption cases involving Indians have cropped up , sources have mostly been in foreign soil. In the CWG scam also it was British  authorities which revealed kickback while raiding the accounts of UK based AM Cars and Films.

The story of revelation of one million USD pay off to an Indian Consultant in Kribhco-Yara joint venture is no different. It was also revealed by the authorities of Norway only while raiding Yara International on some other pretext not involving Kribhco.

Indian cooperative.com is collaborating with the leading Norway Financial newspaper to get at the bottom of truth.

According to information acquired by Indiancooperative.com, Norway Police is investigation the matter quite seriously. The police in Norway is in many ways very silent when it comes to this case. Its quite normal in cases of corruption. But they keep on investigating the case.

The Norwegian National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime is conducting the investigation. Senior public prosecutor Marianne Djupesland in the Corruption Team is leading the investigations.

Police found evidences of a payment during a police raid against the head quarter of Yara.

Yara International ASA is the world’s leading chemical company that converts energy, natural minerals and nitrogen from the air into essential products for farmers and industrial customers. Its global workforce is more than 7,300 employees having headquarters in Oslo. It operates in more than 50 countries and sales to about 150 countries.

In addition  to the Kribhco deal, Yara signed a MoU with Deepak Chemicals and Fertilisers in January 2008. There have been no allegations related to corruption in this deal.

But what ultimately may tip the scale is possibilities of Yara turning approver in the case. Having caught off-guard, Yara has defended itself by saying that the company alarmed the police about suspicious transaction related to a deal in India.

Presently Yara International officials are tightlipped on the matter. But once the matter hots up and authorities tighten the screw it may turn to be approver in the matter.

The same happened in case of AM Films of UK in CWG scam. AM Films now wants to be approver and is ready to reveal all details.

The scale of the scandal in terms of finance  is quite small but the implication could be far-reaching. Kribhco is a cooperative with avowed promise of helping farmers and its members. People managing the affair of Kribhco are not managers but high profile politicians who are never tired of talking about patriotism.

Unfortunately, Ministry has no role in Kribhco’s affair. Though govt share to the tune of 30 per cent is with it,  its affairs are conducted by Board of directors who are elected through polling.

Indiancooperative.com is keeping close watch and days are not far off when it would be able to expose the black sheep.