Punjab Government on Sunday placed under suspension two inspectors of the State procurement agencies — Markfed and Pungrain — after the issue of alleged bogus billing of paddy procurement in Patti grain market of Tarn Taran district came into light.
Several irregularities were found in the investigation conducted by the team of the State’s Food and Civil Supplies Department. The purchase of Markfed and Pungrain in Patti Mandi has been stopped, and now, Punjab Agro and PUNSUP will procure paddy in the mandi.
Notably, complaints regarding irregularities in procurement in Patti grain market were received by the Food and Civil Supplies Minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu, who ordered to conduct an inquiry.
After that a team of department officials was constituted and sent for the inspection, which found several irregularities in the purchase, such as the Pungrain inspector purchased more than the limit of 25 percent of the purchase.
“There was no division of commission agent's shops among different agencies in the grain market. The purchase register was also not maintained,” the probe report pointed.
Besides, in Patti grain market, the said Inspector did not make any purchase from October 22 to 31, 2018, whereas the lifting of 28,653 bags had been shown, which was later shown collectively as purchase of November 1 and 2, the report added.
The Department has started a campaign against such malpractices since September to stop the bogus billing, in which two lakh bags of paddy were seized from various shellers of Ferozepur in the last week of September.
Meanwhile, 25,000 bags of rice were seized in Jalandhar and Moga districts. In October, 15,000 bags of paddy were seized in Sangrur. As many 14,000 bags of paddy were seized from trucks on the Shambhu Barrier, which were from other States.
In Khanna, 5000 bags of paddy were also seized, which were purchased from Bihar at lower price and supposed to be sold in Punjab with the connivance of arhtiyas and sheller owners.
Ashu said that the farmers will not face any problem in Patti grain market as now only 2,000 MT of paddy arrival is expected.