Pramesh S Jain & Yogesh K Porwar
The Rajasthan Forest Department officials along with the local police acting on a tip of Karnataka forest department officials have raided a godown in Jaipur and recovered over 100 kg of sub-standard sandalwood chips, dust,and oil which,according to the officials,are being supplied to Cauvery Emporium,Bengaluru in the garb of authentic Karnataka sandalwood products.
Senior officer told reporters,The raid was carried out based on information provided by the Karnataka Forest Department officials, following their raid on Cauvery Emporium last week.
“The accused running the shop in Jaipur did not have a proper licence to sell sandalwood products,and did not have a GST number either,”said Arijit Banerjee,Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Rajasthan.
“Even though Rajasthan is not a sandalwood growing State, the accused would grow sandalwood trees on a farmland.This is called weed sandalwood, which is much lower in quality than that grown in Karnataka.
However,the accused in Rajasthan used to supply this weed sandalwood to Cauvery Emporium through a Uttar Pradesh based agent, branding it as authentic Karnataka sandalwood.
This is not only cheating the state government by compromising the state’s brand but also the customers of the Emporium and cheating the local farmers and artisans,”a senior forest official from Karnataka said.
The UP based agent runs a garments shop near Cauvery Emporium and had a nexus with the manager of the Emporium, operating the racket for the past five months, supplying four to five kilos of sub standard sandalwood products from Jaipur in one transaction.
The accused would buy the products made from weed sandalwood from the source for Rs.2,000 per kilo and sell it to the manager for Rs.15,000.
The manager would in turn sell the product to his end customers for Rs.35,000 per kilo,cheating them by claiming that it is authentic sandalwood grown in Karnataka, sources said.
The accused have misused the loopholes of the law and used to get only limited quantities of sandalwood from Rajasthan by road through courier everyday.
This was to avoid undue attention and also an attempt to evade the law,” Ganesh V. Thadagani,Assistant Conservator of Forest, Karnataka Forest Department, probing the case said.
The manager of Cauvery Emporium and the agent both were arrested in the case, but are out on bail. Meanwhile, Rajasthan Forest Department has also joined the probe to ascertain the network of this gang.