Kollam: The mobile fish market, "Anthipacha", launched by the Matsyafed with much fanfare with the motto of helping fishermen is now under scrutiny over financial embezzlement. It is alleged that financial irregularities to the tune of crores of rupees have been reported from the novel marketing drive.

In Kollam district alone, embezzlement worth more than Rs 1 crore in the last six months has been detected by the Matsyafed auditing wing in their preliminary inquiry.

An attempt was made to hush up the whole case by transferring one official. A meeting of the top officials has been convened in the Capital city in the coming day to discuss the issue.

The "Anthipacha" market is run through 25 marketing outlets, including fish booths, franchises and five vehicles. The fish products are handed over to these marketing units by the Matsyafed at Sakthikulangara harbour after it is cleaned at the Common Pre-Processing Centre (CPPC) situated there.

At the end of the sales drive every day, these units remit the sales proceeds to the CPPC. As per the rule, this amount remitted by the units must be deposited in the Matsyafed's bank account by the officials on the same day itself. But it was found that some of the Matsyafed officials had pocketed this fund.

The State Government had likely hushed up the fraud in the backdrop of the Thrikkakara Assembly bypoll. Now the auditing wing is examining the files handled by the officials who were suspected to be involved in the fraud.

It is assessed that the fraud was committed by fudging entries in the Tally software used for entering accounts in the Matsyafed.

Earlier, a team led by a higher official of the State Finance Department gave a clean chit on the scam after inspecting the accounts. There are allegations that the fraud took place with the connivance of the higher officials.

The financial irregularities unearthed in Kollam could be just a tip of the iceberg. Though a probe was initiated in connection with the irregularities in a fish booth in Pathanamthitta, later it was frozen following intervention from the higher-ups.

The latest fraud in Kollam was spearheaded by an employee who acted as the main facilitator for those officials who came for inspection at the Sakthikulangara CPPC recently in connection with the above said case.

Matsyafed or the Kerala State Co-operative Federation for Fisheries Development Ltd is the federation of 654 primary fisherman co-operative societies.