Foodgrain scam: Cong wants stock verified

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, April 21

A day after he filed a complaint against the CM and his Cabinet colleagues for causing a loss of more than Rs 12,000 crore to the state exchequer by diverting the foodgrain stock, Congress leader Sunil Jakhar demanded physical verification of the stock at godowns, submission of report with the Centre and CAG and bringing the guilty to book by attaching their properties.

He said that the biggest loss that the scam had caused was to farmers as it had delayed their payments for wheat produce by a month owing to the delay in the release of the Cash Credit Limit (CCL) which was earlier held up by the RBI.

The farmers, already reeling under financial crunch due to crop failure, have now suffered a loss of interest on the payment for their wheat produce, Jakhar said.

Claiming that such a big scam could not have gone unnoticed by ministers and agencies, Jakhar stated that those found guilty must be made to pay for the shortfall by attaching their properties rather than simply taking the release of CCL by the RBI as a clean chit to the state in the multi-crore scam.

“In case, the government fails to pin responsibility on the guilty, the Congress, after forming the government in 2017, will go to the depth of the scam and then, the guilty will not be spared irrespective of their political stature,” he said.

The Congress leader said that when Captain Amarinder Singh had formed the government in the state in 2002, the government had paid off — in instalments — the then Rs 2,000 crore loss caused to the state exchequer in a similar fashion by the earlier SAD government.

“In nine years, the SAD-BJP combine has managed to cause a loss of Rs 12,000 crore to the state. But this time, we will not pay for it. We will make sure that their act causes a dent in their own pockets,” Jakhar said.