It is curtains for JAKFED

SRINAGAR: Jammu and Kashmir government has kicked off the process to wind-up Jammu and Kashmir Cooperative Supply and Marketing Federation (JAKFED).

The decision to fold-up JAKFED has been taken against the backdrop of Rs 300 crore scam allegedly involving top bureaucrats and officers.

Government has formed a high powered committee headed by Administrative Secretary, Cooperatives, to start the process for winding up JAKFED. Representatives of Finance Department, Planning and Monitoring Department, General Administration Department, and Law Justice and Parliamentary Affairs have been made members of the committee.

The committee has been tasked to work out modalities including voluntarily retirement scheme for JAKFED employees. Around 224 employees are on the rolls of JAKFED which has been incurring annual losses of around Rs 3 crore. Currently its liabilities stand at Rs 70 crore.

“All the assets of JAKFED will be taken over by the government. Financial liabilities shall be settled by the Cooperative department through the sale of assets,” sources said.

Registered under the Jammu and Kashmir Cooperative Societies Act, 1989, JAKFED has been the apex institution in the Cooperative Sector for the last so many decades. The major activities of the Federation included procurement and distribution of fertilizer, building material, domestic gas etc.

Initially a profit earning organization, JAKFED was dogged by malpractices which became one of the reasons for its downfall.

Several probe committees were set up by government to inquire into the irregularities.

In one such report submitted to state government on August 31, 2000, Pillai Committee recommended “stern punishment” against officials involved in the scam. Later, a petition was filed in J&K State Accountability Commission against former Chief Secretary and 11 senior officials for their alleged involvement in the Rs 300 crore fertilizers scam in 1989.