ED Probes Baghel Govt's Custom Milling Decisions and Extortion Nexus
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The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has stepped up its multi-agency financial investigation into an alleged ₹140-crore extortion and money laundering syndicate embedded within the paddy custom milling operations during the former Bhupesh Baghel-led Congress administration in Chhattisgarh. According to official agency disclosures, central investigators are scrutinizing a pivotal policy shift during the 2021-22 Kharif marketing season, wherein the state government sharply escalated the special milling incentive disbursed to commercial rice millers from ₹40 to an unprecedented ₹120 per quintal. Following formal requisitions, the state administration furnished an extensive 350-page dossier containing confidential Cabinet decisions, departmental approvals, and disbursement logs to establish whether the incentive hike was intentionally engineered to siphon public funds into private hands.
The Kickback Blueprint: How a ₹40-per-Quintal Cut Was Skimmed from Incentive Installments
Court records from January 2026 shed significant light on the mechanics of the alleged financial racket, outlining a systematic extortion network designed to siphon ₹40 per quintal from beneficiary millers. Federal prosecutors revealed that the revised ₹120-per-quintal state incentive was scheduled for disbursement in two equal tranches of ₹60 each. However, syndicate operators allegedly mandated an illegal deduction of ₹20 per quintal on each tranche as a prerequisite for clearing subsidy checks and processing official payments. This structured extortion pipeline generated hundreds of crores in unaccounted cash reserves, effectively holding private millers hostage to bureaucratic approvals orchestrated by influential political and administrative intermediaries.
Raids, Cash Seizures, and EOW-ACB FIR: Former Markfed MD and Millers Under Federal Scanner
The trail of illicit transactions led to extensive search and seizure operations conducted across multiple Chhattisgarh districts between October 2023 and mid-2024, resulting in the confiscation of ₹1.06 crore in unexplained cash and the provisional attachment of immovable properties valued at roughly ₹19 crore belonging to Roshan Chandrakar, former treasurer of the Chhattisgarh Rice Millers Association. Acting on financial evidence and forensic documentation shared by the ED, the state Economic Offences Wing and Anti-Corruption Bureau (EOW-ACB) registered a comprehensive criminal case. Chargesheets and court submissions detail the direct involvement of key officials, including then-Markfed Managing Director Manoj Soni alongside Chandrakar and senior administrative facilitators, as investigators pursue further asset seizures and custodial questioning to uncover the complete money-laundering trail.
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