Sugar Scam
In 2002 the chief commissioner of central excise and customs, Pune, issued notices on 24 sugar factories including Sant Muktabai Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana to recover 87 million rupees due on account of excise duty evasion. The sugar factories, mostly in Pune and Aurangabad regions, have been found guilty of selling export quota sugar in the domestic market at high prices. These sugar factories have not only availed excise duty exemption of 85 rupees per quintal, but also earned a big differential by selling the sugar in the local market.
The scam involved diversion of export-oriented sugar in domestic market. In 2001-02, these co-operatives had obtained export licence for 228,000 tonnes of sugar, but in collusion with export agents, diverted the sugar to the domestic market. This led to the collapse of domestic sugar prices and caused major losses to sugarcane farmers besides excise evasion of nearly 800 million rupees. The Muktabai SSK sugar cooperative factory, Jalgaon, with Pratibha Patil as its founding member and chairperson, was one of the companies which figured in the scam
Read more about this topic: Sant Muktabai Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana
Famous quotes containing the word sugar:
“They give us a pair of cloth shorts twice a year for all our clothing. When we work in the sugar mills and catch our finger in the millstone, they cut off our hand; when we try to run away, they cut off our leg: both things have happened to me. It is at this price that you eat sugar in Europe.”
—Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694–1778)