Irregularities in supply of ghee to Sabarimala; Former board president P S Prasanth likely to be arraigned

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Former devaswom board president P S Prasanth is likely to be arraigned in the case linked to the irregularities in the supply of Milma ghee to Sabarimala temple. The special investigating team (SIT) will most probably register FIR in the case today. Former member of the board A Aji Kumar and late B Murari Babu are in the accused list. The FIR will be filed in the Thiruvananthapuram Vigilance Court.

The SIT is investigating irregularities in the procurement of ghee from Milma for the making of Aravana in Sabarimala last season. The SIT team, led by IPS officer vigilance superintendent M J Sojan, was appointed on Wednesday as per the directions of the Kerala High Court. It is alleged that a large part of the ghee was diverted midway and adulterated ghee was delivered instead. The contract was to procure 1.65 lakh liters of ghee for 20,000 units of Aravana.

The devaswom chief vigilance officer had said in the preliminary investigation report submitted to the high court that the board suffered a loss of Rs 2.28 crore due to the procurement of ghee from Milma at a high price.

The proceedings were initiated based on two letters from the late former executive officer Murari Babu, who is also accused in the Sabarimala gold scam. Although Tamil Nadu-based Kungumaraj Dairy emerged as a top performer in the quality assessment and quoted just Rs 369 per litre, the contract was awarded to Milma at a significantly higher rate of Rs 510 per litre. Milma's Pathanamthitta Dairy made an unusual procurement of 24,970 kg of ghee from a Pune-based company at Rs 497 per kg also raised suspicions of irregularities.