Probe into bungling of govt wheat in Cantt area starts

PK Jaiswar

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, June 22

This could be just the tip of an iceberg. An inquiry team comprising three food inspectors today visited the Cantonment area to verify the credentials of blue-card holders and beneficiaries of the government’s Atta Dal scheme.

During verification, the team could confirm the identities of only eight beneficiaries while it failed to locate the remaining beneficiaries, it is learnt. Surprisingly, out of the three depot holders of the area, two of them stated they were not aware of the any distribution of wheat and how these cards were prepared while the third depot holder could not be located.

The inquiry was initiated after a local resident and an RTI activist, Varun Sareen, alleged that a large number of blue cards of fake beneficiaries were prepared in Ward No.14-B of the old Cantonment area in order to siphon off a huge quantity of government wheat. He alleged that over 60 per cent names of beneficiaries figured in the list of ration-depot holders of the ward were suspected to be fake. There were only a few families belonging to the Sikh community that lived in the old Cantonment area. But the list taken out from a website named a large number of Sikh families in the list of beneficiaries. Ironically, there were no addresses of the beneficiaries given in the list, he stated. The ration allocated to the beneficiaries was also disbursed in another depot in the Putlighar area. This has raised suspicion.

The team comprises three food inspectors: Jaspreet Singh, Aneet Sharma and Gaurav Sharma. They had a list of around 40 beneficiaries, out of which only eight were verified while the remaining names in the list were found to be forged. The team also recorded the statement of two depot holders, identified as Manohar Lal and Vijay Kumar.

Manohar Lal stated the government wheat was disbursed by the so-called president of the depot holders and officials of the Food and Civil Supplies Department. He was never involved in this nor did he have any knowledge about the beneficiaries.

Similarly, Vijay Kumar said the visiting team he had left the depot around a year ago and that he did not know about any disbursed wheat. He said he had never signed the sales register of the department.

The team failed to locate the third ration depot, run in the name of Manjit Kaur. The owner of the building, the address of which was mentioned, said the suspect had taken the building on rent around six years ago and run the depot only for a month or so. Since then it was closed down.

Sareen, who also accompanied the team, said if the department held a time-barred verification of all blue- card holders seriously, it would unearth a major scam involving siphoning off of government wheat.

District Food and Civil Supply Controller Sartaz Singh Cheema could not be contacted, despite repeated attempts.