Punjab: Notice to 2 top officers over missing straw machines, withdrawn

Ruchika M Khanna

Chandigarh, January 25

A recent order of the Punjab Agriculture Minister Gurmeet Singh Khudian created ripples in the Agriculture Department. He had ordered the issuance of show-cause notice to the Director and Joint Director of the department for failing to give information regarding the stubble machine manufacturers, whose machines were found missing.

Most machines bought from 7 makers

Information gathered by The Tribune shows that 401 manufacturers of different machines for management of crop residue have been registered by the Agriculture Department, though a major chunk of machines was bought from seven manufacturers. These 401 manufacturers had further nominated 2,000-odd sub-dealers and all 90,422 machines were bought from them.

These were meant for Director Jaswant Singh and Joint Director Jagdish Singh for their unwillingness to provide information sought by his office. But on coming to know about the order, the former immediately met the minister with the required documents containing the information sought. Upon his request, the order was later withdrawn.

The minister had reportedly sought information of all stubble management machines manufacturers from the Joint Director on January 23. “But the officer kept on making excuses. Later, he said that the information cannot be given to the minister without prior approval of the Director. On the same day, a few hours thereon, the Director met the minister at the latter’s office and was asked to submit the report. The clerk in the office of Director was also asked to get the visiting cards of the minister printed, but they did not heed to the directions… It appears that the staff in the office of the Director is either not under his control, or they have his backing for not heeding to the directions of the minister’s office,” said the office order.

The Director said that there was some delay in sending information to the minister. ‘But after I handed it over to him, the order had been withdrawn,” he said.

The Joint Director said that he had not received any show-cause notice. “There was some confusion as I got a call from an unknown number, claiming that the record was being sought by the minister. The list (of manufacturers whose machines supplied to farmers went missing) is confidential and I could not have passed it on to anybody without being sure of who was seeking the information. In any case, the information has been given to the minister by the Director,” he said.

For the past one week, allegations and counter allegations have been made by the junior field staff and the senior staff in the department ever since the notices were issued to over 900 officials in the department in the missing stubble machinery management case. These officers, who have been on a pen-down strike since Tuesday, have been alleging that they are being falsely implicated, while senior officers in the department are being let off the hook.

These officers, agriculture development officers, agriculture officers, agriculture sub-inspectors, agriculture extension officers, have been alleging that the manufacturers of these machines were also involved in the scam for either issuing fake bills of machines that were not delivered or recyclingthese machines.

The Tribune had reported in its columns last Saturday about the notices to over 900 officials of the department after physical verification showed 11,000 machines (of 90,422 given on subsidy) missing. The officials who got the notices had been demanding that the role of manufacturers whose machines were missing should also be probed. Following this, the minister had sought details from the Joint Director and Director.