MP moong fraud: Raisen operators booked for buying on open market, selling to govt

Three computer operators at cooperative societies in Madhya Pradesh's Raisen district have been booked over an alleged moong procurement fraud in which farmers' land records were used to create registrations they knew nothing about, investigators have said.

The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) is probing the scheme, which is alleged to have run out of three societies in Badi tehsil across two procurement seasons and generated roughly Rs 13.3 lakh, according to investigators who pieced together the case from land records, farmer testimonies and two internal cooperative department inquiries that preceded the criminal complaint.

The investigation comes at a politically sensitive moment for Madhya Pradesh, where the government has faced sustained farmer protests over moong procurement and the implementation of the minimum support price.

How it worked

Every operator at a cooperative society can access the land records of farmers in the area serviced by that centre, including those who own agricultural plots but have never registered to sell their crop through the government's support-price scheme.

According to officials, land that no farmer had registered was fraudulently registered by the accused in the names of their acquaintances, and moong was weighed through such registrations. The operators allegedly bought moong from local markets at lower prices and sold it at government procurement centres at the higher minimum support price, pocketing the difference.

Shriram Thakur, a computer operator at Dehri Kala, was found to have registered 8.095 hectares under one entry and another 4.532 hectares under a second, together allegedly yielding 151.524 quintals of moong procured at the 2025 support price of Rs 8,682 a quintal — a payout of Rs 13,15,531. Investigators established that the moong he actually supplied against those registrations was bought in bulk for about Rs 4,54,572, leaving him a margin of Rs 8,60,959.

Ranjeet Thakur registered 3.523 hectares in his own name, procured 42.276 quintals for Rs 3,67,040, and is estimated to have spent Rs 1,26,828 acquiring the moong he delivered — a profit of Rs 2,40,212, according to the police.

At Bharkachh Kala, operator Gaurav Thakur allegedly registered 3.428 hectares, procured 41.136 quintals worth Rs 3,57,142, and spent an estimated Rs 1,23,408 sourcing it, clearing Rs 2,33,734.

Investigators arrived at these figures by comparing the men's procurement receipts against prevailing mandi rates for moong of comparable quality in Bareli over the same window — rates that swung from as low as Rs 1,500 a quintal to as high as Rs 8,800 depending on grade, against a fixed government support price of Rs 8,558 in 2024-25 and Rs 8,682 the following season.

Ritu Garhwal, secretary of the Agricultural Produce Market Committee, told investigators that the procurement route was never the only option open to the men whose names were used, noting that farmers can independently sell their produce.

How it came to light

None of this surfaced through the procurement system's own checks. It surfaced because a farmer noticed his name on paperwork he had never signed.

Rajeev Patel, who lives in Badi tehsil, wrote to the EOW in May 2025 alleging that Ranjeet Thakur and others at the Dehri Kala, Bharkachh Kala and Googalwada societies were registering land without the owners' consent.

When investigators went back to the farmers named in those registrations, several described the same experience of discovering, after the fact, that their land had been used. Babulal said a registration had been created against his plot for the 2025-26 season at the Krishak Seva Sahakari Samiti Dehri Kala — a claim he had allegedly never made.

Chandrabhan Singh Patel said land belonging to his wife and daughter-in-law had been registered fraudulently in his daughter-in-law's name under four separate farmer codes, which he described as fake registrations. Sandeep Patel said a registration in his wife Diksha Patel's name at the same centre was fake. Investigators noted that this was not an isolated lapse in paperwork but a pattern across the cases, in which the registered farmers had no knowledge of the registrations, nor had they given any consent or provided any Kolinama.

The findings

By the time the EOW opened its case, the cooperative department had already investigated the same allegations twice and reached broadly the same conclusions, without either inquiry resulting in a police complaint.

The first, ordered by the Deputy Commissioner of Cooperative Societies in Raisen in October 2025 and led by senior cooperative inspector A.P. Singh, concluded that Shriram Thakur had himself added the land of farmers' Sikmi/Kolinama into the farmers' accounts, which was found to be against the rules; the department dismissed him from service the following April.

Patel filed a second complaint in May 2026, prompting another inquiry, this one under audit officer Ashok Sharma, which found that operator Gaurav Thakur of Bharkachh Kala institution and employee Ranjeet Thakur of Dehri Kala were found guilty because registrations had been made in their own names in an unlawful manner, and both were proposed for action according to law and were expelled.

Both cooperative department reports recommended prosecution. Both times, the department stopped at dismissal — a gap investigators flagged directly in their findings, stating that the investigation team had proposed legal action, but the department merely expelled the accused persons from service, and no effort was made to take any legal action against them, due to which the involvement of officers or employees of the Cooperative Department is not reflected.