Cashews On Bill, Khichdi On Plate: Probing Madhya Pradesh's 'Dry Fruit Scam'

Bhadwahi village in Madhya Pradesh's Shahdol district has found itself at the centre of a bizarre controversy. It all started when official bills from a local water conservation event claimed that 14 kilograms of dry fruits were consumed in just one hour. That unusual figure, part of a rupees 24,270 hospitality bill filed under the Jal Ganga Sanvardhan Abhiyan, triggered public outrage. As the news spread and images of the inflated bill went viral on social media, NDTV travelled to Bhadwahi to investigate whether the plates actually matched the paperwork. What we found was a story not of dry fruits, but of dry lies-cleverly disguised in government files.

According to records, the programme took place on May 25, 2025, as part of the state-run Jal Ganga campaign, and was attended by nearly twenty senior officials, including the District Collector, the CEO of the district panchayat, and the SDM. 

The event, intended to promote water conservation and grassroots dialogue, reportedly involved elaborate catering--at least on paper. The bills filed after the event showed massive quantities of food-- 14 kilograms of dry fruits, 30 kilograms of namkeen, nine kilograms of fresh fruits, six litres of milk, and five kilograms of sugar. The total cost of this brief 'hospitality' amounted to more than twenty-four thousand rupees.

But when NDTV reached the villages listed on the bills--Bhadwahi, where the event took place, and Bharri, from where the dry fruits were supposedly procured -- an entirely different picture emerged. One of the major suppliers named in the documents was Govind Gupta, who runs a tiny grocery shop in Bharri. 

Gupta, however, said he never stocked such quantities of dry fruits. "I don't even have a proper bill book. They sometimes take blank slips from me and use them later. I don't remember giving anyone 5 kilos of cashews or 30 kilos of namkeen. I don't keep such stock," Gupta told NDTV. His shop had no GST registration, no billing system, and, visibly, no stock of dry fruits.

Even more surprising was the claim that bananas, pomegranates, grapes, apples, ghee, flour, and oil were purchased from a shop owned by one Lallu Kewat. When NDTV arrived at his address, it turned out that Kewat isn't a grocer at all--he is a supplier of building materials. 

His wife Roshni, confirmed that they only deal in sand, cement, and gravel. "We don't supply fruits or ghee," she said, looking puzzled at the idea that a government bill had credited her husband with feeding bureaucrats.

Back in Bhadwahi, NDTV reporters found no trace of the lavish spread that the documents suggested. Villagers who had participated in the programme said they were served only simple dal khichdi and a little seviyan. There was no sign of dry fruits. 

"There were only two small plates of cashews and almonds, and the officers barely touched them. Most of us never even saw them," said Mangaldin Yadav, a farmer. 

Another resident, Ramswaroop Jaiswal, added, "Jalebi, samosas - nothing was distributed. The public got nothing. Even the money for our labour wasn't paid."

The officials had come, the villagers said, for an hour-long event involving "Bori Bandhan"-- a traditional technique of stacking sandbags to conserve water. But the villagers claim the effort was symbolic at best. "As soon as it rained, all the bags washed away," said Vimal Singh, who was present at the site. "It's a live nala. Nothing stays there."

NDTV's team also reached the drain where the water conservation activity took place. Though the campaign's intent was noble-reviving and cleaning water bodies, ponds, and traditional wells- the execution, at least in Bhadwahi, appeared to be focused more on refreshments than results.

When asked about the dry fruit controversy, Mudrika Singh, Additional CEO of Shahdol Zila Panchayat, acknowledged the irregularities. "Yes, we had gone for the Chaupal event. It's a remote area, so food was arranged for the villagers and officials. We were not aware of the cashew-raisin bill. It has come to our notice and will be investigated," she said. 

Cabinet Minister Kailash Vijayvargiya, when questioned about the same, said he had no knowledge of the incident.

But in Bhadwahi, the outrage is real. Villagers now joke that children should be named "Kaju" and "Kishmish", because that's the only place these items exist-on government paper. "We got khichdi; they got praise. And the files got fat with fake bills," said one villager bitterly.

The government campaign had promised to save water. But what was actually conserved, it seems, were inflated bills and blank slips. And in the middle of it all, a remote tribal village found itself reduced to a joke about dry fruits-without having ever tasted them.

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