JOIN USPlanter from C'magaluru likely to head coffee board
If all goes well, coffee board is most likely to headed by a coffee planter from the district most known for its contribution to the sector.
Not only that, for the first time a coffee grower would be occupying the post hithertho held mostly by IAS officers or politicos without any exposure to coffee industry.
The development that is set to instal coffee planter M S Bhojegowda of Krishnagiri Coffee Estate as the head of the board, follows a demand from MPs from coffee-growing states including Karnataka and also various coffee growers organisations. They have been exerting pressure on the Centre to nominate people from the very industry to the board.
Bhojegowda, who has been a prominent BJP leader in the district, has twice served as the district unit president. The BJP MPs and MLAs from the state have recommended his name to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The prime minister has been vetting into the demand, with only official stamp left to complete the process, sources told DH.
Adding credence to the development, the district administration and the superintendent of police of state intelligence are learnt to have done a background check on Gowda and submitted a report to the Union Commerce ministry.
The report includes both personal and professional details of Gowda, who has been the third-generation coffee planter. He is the fifth son of centenarian planter M R Sannasidde Gowda, owning Krishnagiri Coffee Estate near Chandradrona Hills. He has been exporting coffee to prestigious companies of European Union countries from the past several years.
He plunged into politics through JP movement and later served as youth wing president of Janata Party. He later joined BJP and also contested unsuccessfully against Gayatri Shanthegowda in the election to Legislative Council from local bodies held in 2011. He lost by a thin margin. He has also served as the director of state forest industries corporation. He is currently the member of state BJP executive committee.
A long-pending demand
Karnataka Growers’ Federation (KGF) president B S Jayaram, who welcomed the development, said it had been the demand of the federation from the last three decades to appoint a person who is well aware of the issues plaguing the industry. It is also timely, with the board going defunct in the last two years - with subsidy to the tune of around Rs 70 crore pending to be released to coffee planters in the country.
Local MP Shobha Karandlaje had also hinted at a coffee planter from the district likely to head the board, with both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman convinced with the demand made by a delegation of BJP MPs from the state in this regard.
If Gowda is nominated to the board, he would also become second politician after G Y Krishnan from Kolar, who was the chairman during the tenure of then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. He was also the first politician to head the board.
Vacant post
IAS officer Javeed Aktar demitted office as the chairman of the board upon completion of his tenure of three years on May 9, 2015. The post has remained vacant since then. In the later days, BJP-led national democratic alliance (NDA) government at the Centre sacked directors of the board appointed during the tenure of previous Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government and appointed new directors.
However, the sacked directors moved High Court and also succeeded in getting a stay. Accordingly, they were allowed to complete their tenure of three years that ended on January 19. Following this the Centre nominated new directors on March 9, whose tenure will end on 14 December, 2018.
DH News Service