Morbi fire destroys Rs 42 crore groundnuts: Why Gujarat’s peanut warehouses are prone to fires

On Thursday (July 9) evening, more than five days after a mysterious fire began at a warehouse outside Morbi gutting more than 5,500 tonnes of groundnuts stored on the premises, wisps of white smoke continued to rise from under the piles of charred gunny bags.

For days, firefighting teams from four cities, including one that arrived from Jamnagar more than 100 km away, dumped water on the fire that burned stubbornly, fuelled by the high oil content – typically 40-50% by weight – of groundnuts.

A large metal structure that had collapsed in the fire protected the smouldering bags from the rain that fell intermittently.

In the end, almost 1.6 lakh gunny bags – each weighing 35 kg – packed tightly with the oilseed, were gutted. The crop had been purchased from farmers after Diwali last year for almost Rs 42 crore.

“Around 1.30 pm on July 4, I was informed that smoke was rising from the Rafleshwar warehouse,” Hasmukhrai Rathod, the manager of the godown, said. The godown, leased by the Gujarat State Warehousing Corporation Ltd to store the oilseed stocks, is located behind the Rafleshwar Mahadev temple, about 11 km southeast of Morbi city.

“I was at another warehouse about 20 minutes away. I told employees at the warehouse to call the fire brigade and immediately left for the site. The firefighters arrived at almost the same time as I did,” Rathod said.

Devendrasinh Jadeja, Chief Fire Officer of the Morbi Fire and Emergency Services, said the fire had started on the right side of the godown near the edge of the estate and engulfed the entire warehouse in an hour.

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“The godown was packed with groundnuts filled in cloth bags. The roof caught fire, and by night, the metal structure had collapsed,” Jadeja said.

Help was sought from the fire departments of Wankaner, Rajkot, and Jamnagar. In the first 12 hours of the firefight, 10 teams were trying to douse the groundnut blaze, Jadeja said.

On July 7, the fourth day of firefighting, The Indian Express saw three water bowsers at the site, supplying to Fire personnel stationed on the roof of the office building.

A bulldozer was on the ground, pushing through and scooping up the charred, drenched remnants of burned groundnuts, and loading them in a dumper truck for disposal.

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A thin film of oil floated on the surface of the puddles, shimmering in the sun. Officials said the oil had oozed out of the nuts under the weight of the heavy vehicles rolling over them. “It is a complete loss,” a local administrator at the warehouse said.

Dinesh Suthar, CEO of Gujarat Cooperative Marketing Federation Limited (GUJCOMASOL), the state agency that purchases produce on behalf of NAFED, said there were 1,59,581 bags of groundnuts at the warehouse. At 35 kg per bag, this works out to 5,585.33 tonnes of the oilseed, enough to fill more than a hundred 14-18-wheel heavy-haulage trucks.

The crop was purchased from farmers at a minimum support price (MSP) of Rs 7,517 per quintal, which works out to a total of Rs 41.98 crore. The wholesale and retail price of groundnuts is higher than the MSP.

“The principal owner of the product is NAFED (the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd). GUJCOMASOL purchased the groundnuts at MSP from farmers at the various Agriculture Produce Marketing Committees (APMCs) between November 2025 and February 2026, and handed it over to NAFED, who stored it with the Central and Gujarat Warehousing Corporation Limited. NAFED has paid us, and we have paid the farmers for the crop,” Suthar said.

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India is the second-largest producer of groundnuts in the world after China, and Gujarat is by far the biggest producer of the oilseed in the country. According to the third advance estimates released by the Union Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare on May 27, groundnut production for the 2025-26 crop year is projected to reach a record 13.074 million tonnes, which is 1.132 million tonnes higher than last year’s production of 11.942 million tonnes.

While senior central government officials have visited the warehouse, the cause of the fire remains unknown.

“We have filed a diary entry of the incident at Morbi Taluka police station and have asked an officer of the rank of deputy superintendent of police to investigate the matter. We have collected samples from the site and sent them for forensic analysis,” Morbi Superintendent of Police Mukeshkumar N Patel said.

DySP J M Aal, who is supervising the investigation, said, “We have made teams to investigate the case. We are checking how the fire started, who all were present at the site, whether all SOPs were followed. We are also checking CCTV footage of the premises.”

Abhishek Kumar, the head of the Ahmedabad branch of NAFED who visited the site on July 8, said the Central and Gujarat Warehousing Corporations were responsible for insuring the groundnut stocks.

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“Parallel investigations by the insurers and police are ongoing. We will be able to give further information only after their probe is completed. The loss has been calculated at Rs 44 crore, including the (groundnuts) stock and warehouse cost. We will make the recovery from the Gujarat State Warehousing Corporation, who will in turn seek recovery from the insurance company,” Kumar said.

On fire safety in the warehouse, Kumar said: “All norms were followed. Accidents can happen. We will see what the investigation produces.”

Gujarat State Warehousing Corporation (GSWC) chairman and MD Arunkumar M Solanki was not available for a comment. K L Vaghela, Manager (Storage/IT) who was at the site in Morbi, said, “We warehoused the groundnuts on behalf of NAFED in lieu of storage payment. We have insurance to the tune of Rs 44.46 crore on this particular warehouse and its stock, and that is our claim from the insurer.”

On fire safety, Vaghela said, “We have CCTV cameras and fire safety cylinders at the warehouse… Our last fire incident took place back in 2018.”

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Groundnuts worth Rs 45.21 crore were destroyed in a spate of fire incidents in godowns in Gujarat in 2018.

A fire broke out in a godown in Gandhidham town of Kutch district on January 2 that year, followed by fires in Gondal taluka of Rajkot district on January 30, in a sub-yard of the Rajkot APMC on March 13, at a godown in Hapa in Jamnagar district on April 19, and at a private factory in Shapar-Veraval on May 6.

On June 12, 2018, then NAFED chairman Vaghji Boda, a cooperative leader aligned with the Congress, had alleged “interference by the state government in the procurement process”.

On August 21, 2018, the Gujarat government under Chief Minister Vijay Rupani set up a commission of inquiry under retired High Court judge Justice H K Rathod “for the purpose of making enquiry into the incidence of fire at the four godowns…to fix responsibilities for the said incidence…”.

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The commission was to submit its report within six months from the date of its first sitting. However, the report is not yet available in the public domain. “We will ask for the report to be made public in the Gujarat Assembly,” Dr Manish Doshi, spokesperson of the Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) said.

NAFED Chairman Jetha Ahir, a former six-time BJP MLA and former Deputy Speaker of the Gujarat Assembly, was not available for a comment on the fire. NAFED Director Mohan Kundariya, a former BJP MLA and MP from Gujarat, and a former Union Minister of State for Agriculture, declined to comment.