Aam Aadmi party on Sunday demanded immediate action against ludhiana District Food and Supplies Officer for his alleged involvement in the “pilfering of wheat” from a godown in Rakba village near Dakha.
The alleged pilferage was brought to the notice of ludhiana Deputy Commission who raided the godown along with the police and staff from Food and Civil Supplies Department on August 8 at around 9.30 pm.
“The police has failed to book the big fish as local District Food and Civil Supplies Department is not providing required information to the police,” claimed senior AAP leader HS Phoolka, who had revealed about the incident on August 9.
Phoolka, addressing the media in ludhiana, lamented that despite culprits being caught red-handed, no FIR was registered against the “real culprits” till date except a few labourers.
“This is a big nexus which had started operating during the previous government’s regime, where political bigwigs were involved. In this scam, the inspectors, few DFSOs in state are actively involved while the main culprits remain behind the curtains,” he said.
Seemingly unsatisfied by the inquiry marked by the Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh in the matter, Phoolka said that the PUNGRAIN chairman has done nothing so far.
“Without the connivance of department’s officials and staff, such pilfering is not possible. labourers are given proper training on taking out wheat from bags, adding of water into the bags to increase the weight and finally stitching of bags again as these were originally,” Phoolka claimed.
He said that the “so-called” leaders, who go to distribute wheat to poor and needy, should also be held equally responsible in case wheat is provided to the poor in lesser amount in their areas.
“Wheat is generally distributed at a sarpanch’s house or at some leader’s house. This practice should be stopped and the beneficiaries should be provided with wheat at some community centre,” he demanded.
Phoolka had alleged Rs 127 crore rip-off in distribution of wheat under the popular Atta-Dal scheme alleging that three kgs of wheat was being pilfered from each sack with the connivance of Food and Civil Supplies Department officials “robbing no less than 1.42 crores beneficiary of Atta-Dal Scheme by offering less wheat than promised”.
AAP leader had asked for “immediate physical checking” of all godowns across the state, besides demanding that the facility of CCTV coverage and recording should be provided at each location.
He had also indicated that the “scam” might had link with Rs 31,000 crore food scam.