M A I N   N E W S

Atta-Dal Scheme
Vigilance finds more underweight bags
Chitleen K Sethi
Tribune News Service

Underweight bags of wheat being sorted out at the Markfed godown by the Vigilance bureau team in Banur on Sunday. — Photo by JS Virdi

Banur, August 5
The Vigilance Bureau continued the counting and weighing of sacks of wheat at the Markfed godown here for the second day today and found many more bags less than the stipulated weight of 50 kg. Over five quintals of wheat has reportedly been found to be less from the 3,000 bags that were checked today.

Yesterday teams of the bureau had sealed the godowns of the federation here and at Dera Bassi and begun weighing the over one lakh sacks stocked here following information that wheat stocked for the Atta-Dal scheme was being pilfered.

DSP, Vigilance, Anil Kumar Sharma, leading the team at Banur, said all the sacks in one block of 3,300 bags were weighed today and 60 bags were found to contain less than the stipulated weight. “The weighing will continue tomorrow and if a similar trend continues, we will book those involved in process of procuring less wheat or pilfering it from the godown, whatever the case may be,” he said.

He added that most underweight bags were less by a few kg when actually these should have been overweight due to the high moisture levels. “Even if a few hundred bags are found underweight in the entire stock, it calls for further investigation. One bag weighed 23 kg only and it was not torn. We are taking into account the spillage from torn bags which have been sorted out separately,” he said.

Sources revealed that going by the experience here, Vigilance teams might undertake surprise checks of various other godowns where the wheat for the scheme had been stored across the state.

Meanwhile H.S. Bains, district manager, Markfed, Patiala, in a written statement pointed out that the complete stocks of wheat at Banur were weighed on a computerised weighbridge in trucks before these were stored. “The stocks are weighed on 100 per cent basis in the trucks and not on bag-to- bag basis and the shortfall of quantity of wheat in the stocks received through trucks is recovered from the arhtiya concerned and the short stocks received are accounted towards shortage or spillage,” he wrote adding during 2007-08, spillage of 19 bags had been recorded at Banur Centre.

Any particular bag citing variation less than 50 kg is attributed to many factors like moisture at the time of purchase, storage, the preservation treatment, scientific storage of the godown, aeration flow, he added.

“In order to arrive at truth, one full stack should be weighed on a computerised kanda and for any shortfall, the custodians should be booked. More so, the bags which are more than the stipulated 50 kg, and which are not being counted, should be counted and the total weight of the full stack should be taken in order to arrive at any shortage / short fall in the stocks,” he suggested.

He further alleged that the complaint to the Vigilance was made by one Uttam Singh, a retired employee of Markfed, “who had been pilfering and damaging wheat stocks of Markfed in the past. The stocks which were under the charge of Uttam Singh got completely damaged and are under liquidation. Markfed is likely to suffer a loss of more than Rs 8 crore in this regard,” wrote Bains.

DSP Sharma said experts were attached to the team who were guiding them about the technical factors. Lovkesh Sharma, district food controller from the Vigilance Department, was working with the team. “Markfed’s claim that there are bags which are overweight is not acceptable. In case they have procured more wheat from a farmer and paid less, it is even worse,” said Sharma.