A major wheat procurement scam has allegedly surfaced in Madhya Pradesh, exposing how fraudsters may have exploited the Minimum Support Price system by using the land records of farmers to sell wheat at government procurement centres and receive crores in payments.
The suspected racket has been detected in Morena, Bhind and Rajgarh districts, where individuals allegedly registered themselves as farmers using Khasra and survey numbers belonging to others, including Scheduled Caste farmers. The Economic Offences Wing has now initiated an investigation into the matter.
According to sources, the accused allegedly bought wheat from neighbouring Uttar Pradesh at rates between Rs 2,200 and Rs 2,400 per quintal and then sold it in Madhya Pradesh at the MSP rate of Rs 2,600 per quintal. The difference, officials suspect, turned into illegal profit running into crores.
What has shocked investigators is not merely the scale of the fraud, but the manner in which the system appears to have been bypassed. During the registration process, the names of applicants were supposed to be matched with land records. In cases where names did not match, the registration should have been rejected by the Patwari and Tehsildar. However, several such registrations were allegedly verified at the Tehsil level despite clear discrepancies.
In many cases, there were no valid sharecropping agreements, no written consent from the actual landowners and no legal proof that the accused had any right to cultivate the land. Yet, the registrations were approved.
The alleged fraud was carried out with careful planning. Officials say that registrations were often made in one block or cooperative society, while the actual weighing of wheat was done at distant procurement centres to avoid easy detection. The deadline for registration was March 10, and most of the suspicious registrations were reportedly completed between March 5 and March 10, often during the late-night and early-morning hours between 11 pm and 7 am.
The money trail has raised even more serious questions. While the land records used for registration belonged to other farmers, the MSP payments were deposited directly into the bank accounts of the alleged fraudsters.
So far, investigators have uncovered the sale of more than 18,000 quintals of wheat through this suspected network. In Morena alone, 15 Patwaris have been suspended. Show-cause notices have also been issued to two Tehsildars of Joura and Banmore. In Bhind, FIRs have been registered against four alleged fake farmers.
The Bhind investigation began after Collector Kirodi Lal Meena received a confidential complaint about large-scale fraudulent registrations in wheat procurement. Taking serious note of the matter, he directed Food Inspector Sunil Kumar Mudgal to conduct a detailed inquiry and expose the entire network.
The findings stunned revenue officials. When the farmer registration list obtained from the Food Department was cross-checked with the Revenue Department land records, serious irregularities emerged.
Field inspections and official reports revealed that the Khasra and survey numbers used by the accused were not recorded in their names. In several instances, the accused had no link whatsoever with the land parcels shown in their applications.
Following the inquiry, the registrations of Sanchita Pathak, a resident of Lidhaura village, and Girija, Pratiksha and Veer Singh Tomar, residents of Lalpura, were declared fake. The administration then recommended police action.
Bhind SDOP Ravindra Vaskale said the accused had allegedly targeted different cooperative societies and procurement committees.
According to officials, Sanchita Pathak secured fraudulent registration through the Jaitpura committee by using 18 different Khasra plots from various villages. Girija and Pratiksha allegedly obtained illegal registration through the Nivsai committee by using high-value land parcels in Lalpura village. Veer Singh Tomar allegedly got registered as a farmer by falsely claiming five survey numbers spread across Daboh, Tola and Barei villages.
An FIR has now been registered based on the administration's report. Preliminary investigation suggests that this may not be a case of isolated manipulation, but an organised financial crime involving multiple districts, fake registrations, procurement centres and possible collusion within the system.
Officials suspect that departmental employees or society-level functionaries may also have played a role in allowing such registrations to pass through the verification process. The scope of the probe is now being expanded, and more arrests are likely as investigators dig deeper into the alleged MSP racket.
