The board of Kendriya Bhandar a multi state cooperative under the name Central Govt Employees Consumer Cooperative Society Ltd has been served with a show cause notice in the wake of its failure to conduct elections on time.
The Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Govt. of India which has a majority stake (70%) has asked why action should not be initiated against the present board which has failed to conduct elections on time. May 9, 2017 was the deadline by which the delegates should have been elected but the Board failed even to discuss the issue in its last meeting, notes the letter sent to the Management along with a copy to the Central Registrar.
“Kendriya Bhandar has become the pocket borough of a few and there are people who only see the lure of great riches through it, said an employee on condition of anonymity.
Sources mention M S Rawat an Assistant Director level officer in the Urban Ministry as the man who is controlling the profit-making cooperative for close to 10 years. When it was not possible for him to fight the election he ensured his wife Poonam Rawat won it to become the Chairman as if following in the foot-steps of Bihar strongman Lalu Yadav who installed his wife Rabri Devi as CM”, they added.
Sources add that the membership list of the cooperative is full of manipulations. Sometimes they show there are 19 thousand members and on other occasions they count it to be only 16 thousand. The audit report, however, puts the membership at 90 thousand. And a majority of them are associate members, another source clarifies.
In January, there were reports of financial irregularities against the Rawats and reportedly an enquiry was ordered”, said a source.
Set up in 1963 as a welfare project for the benefit of Central Govt. employees and the public at large Kendriya
BJP cooperators allege that politically patronized by the old dispensation the Rawats kept a tight stranglehold on the cooperative. The BJP cooperators reportedly approached the minister Jitendra Singh with a list of wrong-doings done by the Rawats in the past.
The minister is believed to have ordered an inquiry and the current case of “delayed-election” which violates the Section 23 of MSCS Act 2002 has come in handy in issuing the show-cause notice. It will be followed by supersession of the Board, said a confident BJP cooperator who requested not to be named.
The management of Kendriya Bhandar is led by its Chairperson Mrs Poonam Rawat and Managing Director Mr R.K. Singh.