M A I N   N E W S

PADDY SCAM
21 mill owners, 17 officials booked
Anirudh Gupta

Ferozepore, February 4
The Vigilance Bureau has initiated criminal proceedings against 21 owners of six rice mills where misappropriation of government paddy to the tune of Rs 15 crore has been detected.

According to information, the Vigilance Bureau has slapped cases against 17 officials, including four district managers of various procurement agencies, one DFSC, and 21 rice millers.

A high-level team of Vigilance Bureau sleuths, led by the DIG (Vigilance), Mr B.K. Uppal, swooped down on various rice mills here as part of the offensive launched against the rice millers amidst complaints of large-scale bungling.

According to information, FIRs have been registered against Jawala Rice Mill, Jai Shiv Bhole Rice Mill, Bihar Lal Paras Ram, Sri Ganesh Rice Mill, Radhey Sham and Sons, and Ashish Rice Mills.

Jawala Rice Mill was a defaulter of Markfed during 1994-95 to the tune of Rs 2.20 crore. During 2001-02, this mill allegedly committed bunglings to the tune of Rs 1.24 crore. Jai Shiv Bhole Rice Mill has been a defaulter of various agencies during 1994-95. Though this mill was not allotted to any agency for milling paddy during the current season, yet the Markfed authorities allowed it to mill its paddy without any agreement. Mr Uppal said an official of Markfed had gone out of the way to help this mill.

Bihar Lal Paras Ram Mill was previously a defaulter of Markfed by Rs 1 crore approximately. During 2002-03, this mill was again allotted to Markfed and in this season it has misappropriated Markfed paddy worth Rs 1.68 crore.

Vigilance sources said six cases had been registered against these rice mills in which 17 government officials were found to be involved. They include Subhash Gakhar, Branch Manager, Nana Singh, Field Officer, and Gurbachan Singh, all officials of Markfed, Hari Om Wadhwa, District Manager, Raj Kumar Chauhan, Inspector, both belonging to Punsup, Charanjit Singh Walia, District Manager, and Parmjit Singh, Technical Assistant, Warehousing Corporation, H. S. Bains, District Manager, Markfed, Sukhdev Singh, DFSC, Ferozepore, and Gurmit Singh, District Manager, Warehousing Corporation.