Arhtiya, Pungrain staffer held for bungling Rs 71-lakh paddy
PK Jaiswar
Tribune News Service
Amritsar, May 20
Vigilance Bureau has nabbed a commission agent (arhtiya) Sawinder Singh along with Pungrain’s auction recorder Sarabjit Singh on charges of corruption on Thursday. The VB also booked Pungrain’s Inspector Harmeet Singh in the case though he was yet to be arrested.
According to VB sleuths, the accused bungled government paddy worth Rs 71.26 lakh and forged records, thus causing huge losses.
Interestingly, Sawinder was complainant in the case who had informed the VB about the bungling and involvement of Pungrain officials. However, during probe, officials found his active role in the misappropriation. Therefore, he was also booked in the case registered by the VB on charges of cheating, criminal conspiracy, forgery and corruption.
Vigilance officials said the trio embezzled 3,883 quintals of paddy worth Rs 71.26 lakh and later prepared fake record. The minimum support price of the paddy was Rs 1,835 per quintal. Sawinder, who hailed from Batala used to run SS Trading Company at Mehta Grain Market.
The fraud pertains to paddy purchase in 2019-20 when Pungrain and the FCI were allotted to procure paddy from the Mehta Grain Market. Sawinder had alleged that during the said period, Inspector Harmeet had made a bogus procurement of 9,000 bags of paddy in account of Pungrain and took Rs 50 lakh for the same from the department after taking him into confidence.
However, when records were sought from The Food Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Department, it came to light that the department had written to the Amritsar (rural) Police to register an FIR against Sawinder for bungling of paddy, but the police forwarded the complaint to VB in April 2020 for appropriate action.
After completing the probe, DSP (VB) forwarded the same to the rural police and also to the (vigilance) in March.
The investigations revealed that in October 2019 to November 2019, Pungrain procured over 9,100 quintals of paddy from SS Trading Company. The department made online payment to the tune of Rs 1.68 crore in the account of Sawinder. However, the probe pointed out that Sawinder failed to hand over around 3,883 quintals of paddy to the Pungrain.
Following this, the Food and Civil Supplies Department, wrote to higher authorities and the Police Department to initiate the probe. It was found that the accused showed excess procurement to Pungrain in record rather than actual procurement. The probe also found active connivance of Harmeet and Sarabjit in the fraud as they had forged documents for making the payment in the account of Sawinder.
