Top official grilled over supply of noon meal

Income Tax investigators questioned a top state government official and conducted widespread raids across Tamil Nadu and also in Karnataka following complaints that a private firm that had won the contract to supply eggs and pulses for the nutritious noon meal programme connived with government officials to fabricate fake bills and evade tax.

The sleuths from Income Tax department questioned the M Sudha Devi, the managing director of Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation on Thursday as part of their inter-state raids conducted at 72 premises including the Chennai office of a Namakkal-based food company that is supplying eggs and pulses for noon meal programme run at government schools in the state. 

I-T sources said searches were conducted at Chennai, Namakkal, Tiruchengode, Kancheepuram, Salem, Coimbatore, and Bengaluru. More than 60 teams of officials, which had as many as 500 personnel, were involved in the raids and searches, sources added. 

The investigators were after Christy Friedgram Industry, which had won the contract several years ago to supply eggs and pulses to state government run schools under noon meal scheme. 

I-T officials noted that the company had not only evaded tax, but had been creating shell companies to fabricate fake bills, which were approved by the Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation. 

The company was receiving payment for the supply from the Civil Supplies Corporation; Income Tax officials believe that the officials had been honouring the fake bills submitted by the company. 

“It is difficult to believe that the senior officials were not aware of the largescale fraud by the company. Questioning of the MD of the corporation was related to that,” I-T sources noted. 

The company, which has its headquarters in Tiruchengode, supplies food materials including eggs and health-mix powder for the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme. The tax men also raided the premises belonging to Agni Group of companies, which reportedly has business links with Christy Friedgram Industry. 

“T S Kumaraswamy, who heads Christy Friedgram Industry, is currently in Indore; he is being brought to Chennai by taxmen for the inquiry,” sources said. 

The raids were supervised by Madan Mohan, joint director and Rohan Raj, deputy director, Income Tax department (investigation).