Overview
- The Special Investigation Team was set up after the Food Corporation of India filed a complaint that a consignment for an ethanol unit in Chhindwara never arrived, a development reported on Saturday.
- Investigators and media reports say subsidised rice allocated to empanelled ethanol plants under a government support scheme was allegedly sold to private millers and then routed back into procurement channels or the Public Distribution System.
- Four people have been arrested so far as investigators examine the roles of ethanol units, rice millers, transporters and officials in the suspected diversion.
- Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on July 11 accused the state government of a Rs 1,200 crore diversion involving about 5 lakh metric tonnes of rice and linked the case to past controversies in Madhya Pradesh, framing it as an accountability failure.
- No court convictions or full recoveries have been reported and the probe continues, a situation that could affect PDS supplies, the ethanol-subsidy policy used to boost petrol blending, and political fallout depending on upcoming charges and official findings.