The anti-corruption bureau (ACB) section of the CBI interrogated five former senior officers in the National Jute Board (NJB) and jute commissioners to probe their alleged involvement in financial irregularity of more than Rs 8 crore for setting up of the Assam Golden Fibre Jute Park.

Interestingly, one of the five officers is a senior IAS officer in the rank of an additional chief secretary, who is heading a state government department in Bengal. The ACB’s decision to examine the senior bureaucrat who was also former state home secretary is yet another embarrassment to the Mamata Banerjee government, particularly at the backdrop against when both CBI and Enforcement Directorate (ED), two central investigating agencies have intensified their inquiries to probe scams starting from school teachers’ recruitment, coal and cattle smuggling in the state.

On 25 August, the CBI ACB in Shillong wrote a letter to the NJB authorities in the city, sending a list of five officers, including former secretary of the NJB, former chief vigilance officer of the jute board and former jute commissioner whom the central investigating agency wanted to interrogate to probe the irregularities.

A copy of the letter in possession of The Statesman, stated, “In connection with investigation of the above cited subject case, the following officers are required to be examined.”

It’s learnt that an investigating officer of the CBI has already interrogated the five officers one after another, on different days, since 29 August in the city.

The Union textile ministry had urged the intervention of the CBI to probe the huge financial irregularities related to the jute park in the Silchar area in Assam several years ago.

During 2009-2010, the IAS officer who was the then secretary of the NJB had reportedly taken initiative to set up the jute park with 90 per cent of the project cost from the concerned textile ministry. The remaining 10 per cent was supposed to be given by a NGO, a partner of the project.

Around 50 jute bag manufacturing units, raw jute material bank, bleaching dying units were supposed to come up inside the project site located in an interior village of Silchar district, where raw jute cultivations were hardly found.

Sensing something wrong in utilizing the huge central government funds, a committee formed by the NJB inspected the site in 2016 and found virtually nothing had been set up in the project site, except a 5,000 square ft central hall without power connection, a wooden manual loom and six stitching machines though the central funds had been given to the project management.

The inspection had also revealed that the NGO, owned by a close relative of one of the board of directors of the project, did utilize its 10 per cent of the cost. Interestingly, the member of the director of the project used to hold an administrative portfolio in the NGO.

The inspection committee had submitted a report to the textile ministry exposing how the central government funds allotted for the jute park project were allegedly siphoned off. The NJB had also lodged FIRs against the members of the board of directors and later the ministry urged the CBI to probe the scam.