Cows bought with public money sold to Assam BJP president who failed to even pay

The summer sun beat down mercilessly on the fields of Gorukhuti in Assam’s Darrang district when the bulldozers arrived. It was 2021, and the Assam government had come to clear what it called encroached land. By the time the dust settled in Garukhuti, hundreds of families—mostly Bangla-speaking Muslims suspected to be illegal immigrants—had lost their homes. One man had lost his life.

From this violent beginning emerged an ambitious promise. The cleared land would become the Gorukhuti Bahumukhi Krishi Prakalpa (GBKP), a model agricultural project spread over an area of around 7,800 bighas. Indigenous farmers would prosper. Rural economies would flourish. Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma painted a vision of agricultural renaissance rising from the ruins of displacement.

Three years later, that vision has curdled into scandal.

One of the centrepieces of the project was dairy farming. The state would import prize Gir cows from Gujarat, animals renowned for their milk production. These cows would transform Assam’s dairy sector. At least, that was the plan.

Today, conflicting government statements, opaque procurement records, and disturbing animal mortality rates soon sparked questions about the project’s viability and ethical integrity. Nearly Rs 17 crore in public funds flowed into the project. Initially managed under the Agriculture Department with IAS officer Binod Seshan as its secretary, control shifted a year later from government departments to a special society headed by Sootea MLA Padma Hazarika. The 11-member committee included prominent BJP figures: MP Dilip Saikia, now the state party president, and senior bureaucrats from multiple departments.

Then came the cows. Or rather, some of them did.

The procurement unfolded in three phases. First, 98 Gir cows arrived at a cost of Rs 82 lakh in 2021. Then 24 more cows and a bullock came under the World Bank-funded “Assam Agribusiness and Rural Transformation Project (APART)” programme in January 2022. These transactions left paper trails, documented in RTI responses that would later prove crucial.

The third phase changed everything.

In April 2022, the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) was to deliver 300 Gir cows to Gorukhuti. On March 15, 2023, Assam Agriculture Minister Atul Bora informed the Assembly that all 300 cows had been returned to the NDDB and that the allocated funds for their procurement remained unspent. But government records show that he misled the Assembly as 210 cows indeed reached the project site and even payments were made to NDDB. Later, 154 cows were returned to NDDB because of poor quality while 56 died.

The remaining 90 took a different path. An RTI reply by Dr. Jugabrata Nath, the nodal veterinary officer at GBKPS, reveals that, on the advice of the GBKPS chairman Hazarika, seven “public representatives” were to distribute these 90 cows among farmers, as the facility lacked the infrastructure to accommodate such a large number.

The list of these “public representatives” reads like a who’s who of Assam politics. BJP president Dilip Saikia took two. MLAs collected their shares: Bhuban Pegu got 10, Utpal Borah four, Diganta Kalita two. The vice-chairman of Guwahati Metropolitan Development Authority claimed two more. This arbitrary allotment to seven select government representatives has triggered a major controversy in Assam. 

More important, the 90 cows were never actually distributed to any farmers. None of the “seven public representatives” or GBKPS chairman Hazarika ever explained why these were not distributed.  

But the largest allocations went to two individuals with no official positions and a private firm. Babul Nath and Neeraj Bora, reportedly close to Chairman Hazarika, received 30 cows each. JMB Aqua Agro, a dairy firm owned by Juli Deka Baruah, wife of Assam Cabinet Minister Jayanta Malla Baruah, received 20 cows. No public advertisement announced this opportunity. No selection criteria explained these choices. The cows simply vanished from public ownership into private hands.

Chairman Hazarika offered an explanation that would later unravel. These representatives had “bought” the cows, he claimed. They paid the NDDB directly. But government records told a different story. While JMB Aqua Agro, Nath and Bora, made the payment directly to NDDB, on May 29, 2023, GBKPS itself paid Rs 13.2 lakh for 20 “pregnant” cows taken by five of these beneficiaries—BJP president Saikia, MLAs Pegu Borah and Kalita and the vice-chairman of GMDA. 

When confronted, Hazarika changed the version saying that the five beneficiaries paid to the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Darang District. However, the records of payment show that BJP president Saikia did not even pay the full amount. On March 17, 2023, the price of pregnant Gir cows were fixed at Rs 66,000. However, Saikia parked only Rs 1,00,000 for two cows, Rs 32,000 less than what he ought to have paid. Neither GBKPS authorities, of which Saikia himself is part of, nor Saikia had any valid explanation.

Later, as controversy mounted, he insisted he had returned the animals due to poor quality. No documentation supported this claim. He has not come clean on why the cows meant for distribution to farmers never reached them. He declined to speak to India Today NE even after giving an appointment. 

Meanwhile, another thread of the scandal emerged. JMB Aqua Agro had received a Rs 50-lakh government subsidy meant for dairy entrepreneurs. Critics argued that granting a subsidy to a minister’s wife deprived poorer dairy farmers of access to government support. Ironically, BJP state president Dilip Saikia had even appeared to take a veiled swipe at Malla Baruah, suggesting that public representatives should exercise strict self-restraint when availing government schemes only to later find himself entangled in the very same GBKPS cow controversy alongside Baruah.

Malla Baruah defended his wife’s eligibility saying that only 16 applications had been received for 20 available subsidies. No one was denied.

Amid the growing controversies, Opposition leaders and critics have begun raising concerns about the functioning and management of GBKPS, demanding a third-party audit.

The summer heat still scorches Gorukhuti. But the vision it once promised has long since withered, revealing a landscape of institutional failure. The land cleared with such violence now hosts a project mired in privilege and opacity. The indigenous farmers it was meant to empower remain sidelined, as political elites carve up the benefits among themselves. What was supposed to spark an agricultural revival has instead become yet another tale of broken promises and eroded public trust.