One meal. ₹52.49 lakh. No attendance register released. No vendor disclosed. And unanswered questions over public money spent in the name of Maharashtra’s farmers.
AI4Agri Files | Part 2 of 5
By Vijay Gaikwad | TheNews21 Investigative Desk
Editor’s Note
This report is based on RTI responses, expenditure records, and procurement-related documents obtained from the Maharashtra Agriculture Department. TheNews21 is not alleging fraud or criminal conduct. This investigation raises questions regarding transparency, procurement disclosure, and accountability in the expenditure of public funds.
Mumbai :
There is a document inside the Maharashtra Agriculture Department’s AI4Agri 2026 file that has still not been shown to the public. It is not a confidential national security file. It is not a defence procurement document. It is not a cabinet note. It is an attendance register and without that register, one of the most extraordinary bills generated during AI4Agri 2026 cannot be independently verified.
The figure, obtained through the Right to Information Act, is ₹52,49,000. That amount was billed for a single lunch session during the AI4Agri 2026 event organised by the Maharashtra Agriculture Department at Mumbai’s Jio World Convention Centre. What the government has still not disclosed is how many people actually attended that lunch. Which is precisely why the questions have not gone away.
“जेवणावर ₹52 लाख — शेतकऱ्यांच्या तंत्रज्ञानावर किती?”
The issue here is not whether food was served. It is whether public expenditure of this scale can remain shielded from basic scrutiny. Every government-funded catering contract follows a straightforward principle: the amount billed must correspond to the number of people served, the agreed rate, and a procurement process capable of withstanding audit scrutiny. In the case of AI4Agri 2026, those basic verification points remain unavailable.
The RTI response provides the total lunch expenditure figure — ₹52.49 lakh — but does not disclose the per-head rate, the menu specifications, the number of attendees served, or the identity of the catering vendor. Without those details, the arithmetic itself raises uncomfortable questions. If 300 people attended the lunch, the per-head cost works out to roughly ₹17,496. If 400 attended, the figure becomes ₹13,122 per person. Even at 500 attendees, the per-head cost remains above ₹10,000. At 600 attendees — itself a very large conference turnout for an agri-technology event — the per-head expenditure still comes to nearly ₹8,748.
Premium banquet lunch rates at five-star Mumbai hotels generally range between ₹2,500 and ₹5,000 per head depending on menu and hospitality scale. The gap between prevailing market rates and the billed expenditure remains significant across every attendance scenario. And that gap cannot be independently explained without the attendance register.
The Maharashtra Agriculture Department has been asked multiple times to release that register. It has not done so. The RTI response is equally silent on another critical question: who received the money? The catering vendor’s name has not been disclosed. No GSTIN has been provided. No procurement file has been shared. No GeM reference, empanelment record, or comparative quotation process has been disclosed in the RTI documents made available so far.
In public procurement, vendor identity is not private information. It is part of the accountability chain attached to public expenditure. This matters because AI4Agri 2026 was not a private corporate event. It was organised by a government department using public money in the name of agricultural innovation and farmer welfare. There are only two broad possibilities. Either the catering formed part of the integrated hospitality arrangement provided by the Jio World Convention Centre, in which case the expenditure should be traceable through the venue agreement and package structure.
Or an external caterer was separately engaged, in which case an independent procurement trail should exist — including vendor details, tax records, quotations, and approval documents. The RTI response clarifies neither. Reporter sought copies of the venue agreement and any separate catering contract. Neither document has been provided. This distinction matters for another reason.
Jio World Convention Centre operates as a premium integrated venue with established hospitality arrangements. If an outside catering vendor was separately brought in despite in-house hospitality infrastructure already existing, the reasons and approvals behind that decision become relevant public-interest questions. The absence of disclosure does not prove wrongdoing. But it does prevent verification. That distinction is important.
Across India, audit reports and anti-corruption investigations have repeatedly identified patterns where inflated or unverifiable hospitality billing escaped scrutiny because attendance verification, procurement trails, or vendor disclosures were weak or absent. TheNews21 is not alleging that such misconduct occurred here. We do not possess evidence to make such a claim. What we are stating is narrower, but significant: the documents necessary to independently rule out such possibilities have not been disclosed.
Without the attendance register, there is no way to verify the number of meals actually served. Without vendor disclosure, there is no way to independently verify the supplier. Without procurement records, there is no way to examine whether competitive pricing norms were followed. The GST dimension raises further unanswered questions. Under the GST framework, catering services generally attract an 18 percent tax rate. If GST was charged separately over and above the ₹52.49 lakh figure, the actual public outgo would have been substantially higher. If the amount already includes GST, the underlying base catering amount changes accordingly.
The RTI documents do not clarify whether the ₹52.49 lakh figure is GST-inclusive or pre-tax. The Agriculture Department has also not provided the GST invoice despite requests. For an expenditure of this scale, such omissions are not minor administrative details. They form part of the basic documentation expected in any publicly funded procurement exercise. The approval chain behind the expenditure remains unclear as well.
Government financial procedures typically require senior-level approval for hospitality expenditure running into tens of lakhs of rupees. File notings showing who approved the catering expenditure and through what process have been sought by this new portal. Those file notings have not been released. Under Section 4(1)(b) of the RTI Act, proactive disclosure obligations exist precisely to prevent opacity in public expenditure matters.
The refusal to release routine verification documents has transformed what could have remained an ordinary catering bill into a larger accountability question and the contrast becomes sharper when placed against the realities of Maharashtra’s farm economy.
₹52.49 lakh could finance multiple farm ponds under drought-mitigation schemes in Marathwada or Vidarbha. It could support soil testing and soil health initiatives for thousands of farmers. It could partially relieve debt distress for vulnerable agricultural households. Instead, the money went towards a single lunch session at a luxury convention venue.
“आम्हाला सांगा — त्या जेवणातून आमच्या शेतात पाणी आलं का? खत स्वस्त झालं का?”
— Farmer, Beed district
“सरकारी conference मध्ये AI शिकवलं, आमच्या मुलांना शाळेत WiFi नाही.”
— Farmer, Amravati
Ultimately, nearly every unresolved question in this investigation leads back to one document. The attendance register. If the government releases a verified delegate list showing exceptionally large attendance, the expenditure may still appear unusually high, but at least the arithmetic becomes explainable. If attendance was significantly lower, the per-head cost rises to levels that would invite far more serious scrutiny.
The register exists. The invoice exists. The GST record exists. The approval file exists. The Maharashtra Agriculture Department has chosen not to release them.
A lunch bill worth ₹52 lakh is no longer merely a catering matter when the government refuses to provide the most basic records needed to explain it. It becomes an accountability matter and Maharashtra’s farmers — in whose name AI4Agri 2026 was organised — have a legitimate right to ask where their money went, who received it, and why the government does not want those questions independently examined.
“जेवणावर ₹52 लाख — शेतकऱ्यांच्या तंत्रज्ञानावर किती?”
