MANGALORE: On May 20, 2004, the State was shocked when the Dakshina Kannada district administration unearthed a racket involving "diversion and export" of nearly 17,000 tonnes of rice earmarked for drought-relief programmes in the State. This was out of 14.5 lakh tonnes allotted to the State by the Centre under Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana (SGRY).

This incident had virtually every political party demanding the resignation of the S.M. Krishna Government and also arrests of the officials concerned. The police arrested 28 persons, most of them officials of various Government departments from Hassan.

Two years have passed since and the scam is no longer in public memory.

But, one person who has not forgotten it is Deputy Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa. He told The Hindu on the sidelines of a party workers' meet here on Saturday that there had been many scams during the reign of the previous Congress Government. The bureaucracy had hushed up these scams and not much was known about the the investigations, he said.

"I have held meetings with the officials concerned. I am making efforts to bring those guilty to justice,'' he said. Most of those arrested include officials of taluk panchayat, and Watershed Development and Forest departments.

Director-General of Police (Corps of Detectives) K.R. Sreenivasan told The Hindu here recently that the CoD had completed an exhaustive investigation process.

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