Wheat bags meant for BPL families reach private mill

PK Jaiswar

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, March 21

Wheat meant for people belonging to BPL families is allegedly being misappropriated and supplied to private flour mills. This came to light when a team of sales tax department along with a police team raided a private flour mill near the Bhagtanwala grain market.

It found a truck carrying hundreds of wheat bags with the Punjab Government stamp being unloaded at the mill. A large number of bags were already stashed in the flour mill. Though the owners of the mill claimed that they had proper documents with them, Excise and Taxation officer Lakhbir Singh said they had not been able to produce the documents till that time. The truck has been impounded. “If the wheat bags are found to be stolen from the government supply, we would hand them over to the police for further action,” Lakhbir Singh said.

Parveen Vij, Deputy Director, Food and Civil Supply Department, Jalandhar division, said he would depute officials to investigate the case. He said wheat bags meant for the public distribution system could not be sold to private flour mills or in the market. He said the matter was serious and those guilty would not be spared.

Sources in the department said the wheat loaded in the truck was meant for the public distribution system and was to be delivered to government depots. “The wheat was loaded in a truck from the government grain storage facility located on the Ram Tirath road. It was to be distributed to government depots but it started unloading it at this private mill,” said a source.

Earlier in the afternoon, District Food and Civil Supply Officer Raminder Singh Bath raided the Bhagtanwala grain market and intercepted three trucks carrying government wheat supply bags. The drivers of two trucks fled on seeing the raiding party and driver of the third truck said he did not know where the bags were to be supplied and unloaded. The department impounded these trucks.