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| Newsmaker: Gurdeep Singh Chadha | |
| Tax raid stymies Ponty's magical ride | | Aditi Phadnis & Shishir Prashant / New Delhi February 3, 2012, 0:50 IST | |
When delegates of the World Punjabi Organisation held their deliberations in Dubai in 2008 and were feted and hosted by Gurdeep Singh Chadha aka Ponty, at his palatial home—a party that was attended by everyone, who was anyone in the UAE—they couldn’t have known their host might land into trouble with the Indian Income Tax department, four years later.
Wave Inc—as Chadha’s family-owned company is now known—is under the lens of the Income Tax department and widespread searches of premises held by Wave Inc are going on. At the height of election fever in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, breathless anchors on television channels report that hundreds of crores of rupees have been found and even a 6X6X6 feet cement safe in the basement of one property that has so many neatly-bound bundles of currency notes that the services of several currency counting machines were required, although nothing conclusive regarding money siezed has been reported by the income tax authorities.
There is also the suggestion that Wave Inc, specifically Chadha himself, was so friendly with political dispensations in several states that leaders went out of their way to grant him favours by way of lucrative liquor and other licenses —something that was resented deeply by other competitors.
The evidence suggests that Wave Inc started from a little shack in Ramnagar, Uttarakhand (then UP) where the senior Chadha (Kulwant Singh) ran an eating joint for those visiting the Jim Corbett Park. Gradually, the Chadhas diversified into the liquor trade, impossible to run without political patronage because it is so closely controlled by the government.
The way Wave Inc recounts its story, it began with a sugar crusher mill in Uttar Pradesh, 60 years ago.
Over the years, the family expanded. Gurdeep Singh (Ponty) Chadha, assisted by brothers, sons and grandson (Rajinder Singh Chadha, Hardeep Singh Chadha and grandson Manpreet Singh Chadha) managed to create an empire with a turnover of Rs 2,500 crore.
In UP, it was western UP strongman DP Yadav who ruled the roost for many years, dominating the trade in liquor, sold through vends for which licenses are given out by the state government.
Yadav was a big factor for the Samajwadi Party’s continuance in office. But when serious charges were made against DP Yadav’s son (who is serving a life-term for murder), the SP cast him out. DP Yadav was displaced by Ponty Chadha: though Yadav showed that while he might have been down, he was certainly not out, by bagging several liquor vends in Punjab.
Once Chadha had entered UP there was no looking back. From liquor the family expanded and diversified its business. The liquor business grew in Punjab, Rajasthan, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh; but alongside, so did other branches—real estate, hydel power, cinema halls, soft-drink bottling and even education (the Group runs a school for special children, as well as, is promoting a school project in UP).
Under the 2008 power policy, the government had received 741 bids for setting up hydel projects up to 25 Mw. In the beginning of 2010, the government allotted 56 hydel projects. Chadha’s sGroup was allotted as many as a dozen hydel projects in Uttarakhand by the Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank government which created ripples in the state’s politics. Nishank vehemently denied his links with Chadha, but lost the perception battle and the government was forced to cancel these projects as the case reached the High Court.
According to the Group’s own assets, it has only one project—the Chadha Paper Mill—in Uttarakhand. On its website, Wave Inc has only one distillery, based in Punjab.
Just ahead of the 2009 general elections, UP Chief Minister Mayawati entrusted to Chadha, the sole control of trade in liquor in the state—wholesale and retail—in some districts.
This naturally caused heartburn to competitors. But it put the Chadha footprint firmly in UP. Anil Agarwal, acting president of the Lucknow Sharaab Association and media chief of UP Sharaab Association, said, “Ponty Chadha has monopolised the liquor business. The wholesale business used to be auctioned through a lottery system during the previous regime and there used to be 25 to 30 wholesalers in the state.”
Now, as elections are on in the state to decide who will come to power, the chickens have come home to roost.
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