Huge kickbacks in UP sugar mills' sale: says Cong

Smelling a major scam in the recent sale of four sugar mills by the Uttar Pradesh government, the Congress on Thursday accused Chief Minister Mayawati of large-scale bungling and manipulation in palming off the mills to handpicked buyers.

Alleging play of huge kickbacks in the deals, UP Congress president Rita Bahuguna Joshi on Thursday demanded a high-level probe into what she termed as loss undervaluation with the intent of benefiting the potential buyers.

Throwing the gauntlet at Mayawati, she said, the UP chief minister claims that there was nothing shady about the deal, then let her accept our demand for a CBI probe into the whole affair.

Meanwhile, Congressmen propose to call on the state Lok Ayukta to make a written complaint about the alleged scam.

According to Joshi, the government laid down tailor-made conditions to ensure that the deals were struck automatically in favour of hand-picked business houses.

"The modus operandi adopted by the government was to conveniently exclude the cost of real estate of each of the mills from the estimated official valuation," Joshi said. The market value of the land attached to the four mills was of the order of more than

Rs. 1500 crore, the mills were sold off for a paltry Rs 166 crore, she said.

Jointly addressing the press conference,  former legislator VM Singh, who heads the UP Congress Kisan Cell, questioned the very basis of the sale of the mills in the name of "disinvestment."

He said, "The four mills taken up for disinvestment could not be branded as sick, because two of them were making fairly good profit."

"The government loans given to the mills have also been converted into equity only to help the buyers to save themselves from the liability of repaying the debt," he said.