64,400 bags of cheap paddy seized in Punjab

Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 1

The Punjab Food and Supplies Department has cracked down on unscrupulous traders buying cheap paddy from other states and selling it in Punjab markets at minimum support price (MSP). This is for the first time the government has initiated such an action.

While 20 trucks laden with 14,400 bags of paddy (each weighing 50 kg) coming from Bihar were intercepted by a special team of the Food and Supplies Department at Shambhu barrier (Rajpura) late last night, another 50,000 bags bought from Bihar were seized at Khanna.

Since paddy is not sold at the government-announced MSP in both Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, it is available at much cheaper rates there.

Officers in the department said by the time they intercepted the trucks at the Punjab-Haryana border, almost 20 had already entered the state and could not be traced. As the news of crackdown spread, a huge consignment, trailing the one intercepted, is learnt to have been stopped at Ambala. The Punjab authorities have sought Haryana’s help to track them.

Rakesh Singla, Chief Vigilance Officer (CVO), Food and Supplies Department, said the department had asked the police to register an FIR against the trader, who was the recipient of the paddy seized last night.

“The truck driver had no bill, and when the consignee was called, he produced four bills showing the paddy had been bought from Bihar at much cheaper rates than the MSP of Rs 1,770 per quintal. The trader was unable to explain the purpose of buying such a huge stock of paddy, or prove that he wanted to store it in a godown for later use. The Vigilance Bureau has also started a parallel investigation, since the scam could be worth hundreds of crores,” he said.

Food Department officials said not all paddy bought from other states was sold in the mandis. Some of it is used for mixing in Grade A paddy, bought by government agencies. “The FCI has specified that eight per cent other grain can be mixed in Grade A paddy. Though the FCI specifications only allow for certain fine qualities of paddy to be mixed, traders mix this poor quality paddy bought from Bihar and UP. Some of this paddy is also sold to rice shelling units, which then show this as government paddy parked with them for shelling, and raise bogus bills.