New Delhi: In its initial investigations into the Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) scam, the Uttar Pradesh economic offences wing (EOW) has found suspicious the role of Sanjay Agarwal, the current secretary of the ministry of agriculture and farmers welfare, reported the Economic Times.
Agarwal was the chairman of the Uttar Pradesh Power Employees Trust (UPPET) and the Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Limited (UPPCL) between 2013 and 2017. During this time, he was among the five officials who took the decision to invest a portion of the provident fund in the troubled Dewan Housing and Finance Limited (DHFL).
The decision was taken at a meeting on March 22, 2017 – just three days after the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP formed the government in UP – presided over by Agarwal as president of the UP power employees trust. A few days before the meeting, an amount of Rs 18 crore was transferred to DHFL. Of the five officials present at the meeting, three have already been arrested by the EOW.
Union agriculture secretary Sanjay Agarwal. Photo: Twitter/drronmalka
“As and when the probe progresses, we will be examining all the board members of the trust. As and when we need, we will take their statements,” RP Singh, director general of UP EOW told the Economic Times.
In all, the UPPET violated norms and invested Rs 2,631 crore in DHFL, which has been investigated for alleged links with mafia don Dawood Ibrahim.
The decision to invest EPF money in a private company with a chequered history has been criticised by employees’ unions. Several unions have written to the UPPCL chairman questioning the decision.
The Yogi Adityanath government has tried to put the blame on the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party government, saying that the decision was taken in 2014 and transactions were carried out in 2016.
But, documents have now revealed that the decisions were taken after the Adityanath government took charge and the transfer also happened under the BJP regime.
The Congress has directed its attack on the BJP. The party’s general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra recently said, “In Uttar Pradesh, employees of every government department are worried whether their hard-earned savings are safe or not. One thing is clear from the DHFL-PF scam that the BJP government has sacrificed the money of its employees in an irresponsible manner. Before that, the employees had questioned the decision of investing pension money in IIFL. The BJP government is afraid of transparency. But the employees want every detail of their money.”