BLITZ: Scams Flourish in Punjab's Rice Fields

[Dr. Jai Maharaj]

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SCAMS FLOURISH IN PUNJAB'S RICE FIELDS

B L I T Z
"India's Greatest Tabloid Weekly"
Internet Edition, August 10-16, 1996

by Surinder Khullar in Chandigarh

IT seems rice is not the only thing flourishing in
Punjab's paddy fields. The state's Food and Civil
Supplies Department Principal Secretary Bhagat Singh has
prepared a critical report on a multicrore paddy scandal
which is likely to bag the scalps of many an official.

While unofficial estimates of the unravelling scandal
involving Punjab's rice procurement agencies put the
figure closer to Rs 100 crore, Singh has been more
moderate in his perception. He has alleged bunglings of
Rs 18 crore in this scandal in Punjab, which, after West
Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh, is the largest
contributor of rice to the central pool.

Victims

While the state's rice-growers are at the mercy of the
vagaries of nature and power shortage, the procurement
agencies such as Punjab MARKFED, PUNSUP, Punjab Food and
Supplies Department and the Punjab State Warehousing
Corporation (PSWC), claim they have been victimised by
the Food Corporation of India (FCI).

To add to the woes, rice-millers have frequently been
riding a high horse by delaying milling operations.
Government sources point out that the Union Ministry of
Food wrote to Punjab's Food and Civil Supplies
Department on April 16, inquiring about the disposal of
paddy in Punjab during the '94-'95 kharif season. It
also demanded a report of action taken by the purchasing
agencies to recover their losses from millers who were
under contractual obligation to mill the paddy within a
stipulated period.

The state procurement operations are financed through
the Reserve Bank of India on guarantee by the state
government to get the paddy milled and the rice
subsequently delivered to the central pool.

The cost of paddy, its storage, handling and milling
are reimbursed through the FCI. Investigations reveal
that paddy procured by all the agencies in
September-October '94 could not be milled owing to an
agitation launched by the state's millers to press for
their 'genuine demands'.

Collusion

It is well known that prices in the domestic and
international markets were very attractive and the
millers, evidently with the active collusion of the
agencies, sold the rice in the open market instead of
delivering it to the central pool. This mutually
benefiting nexus claimed the FCI was not accepting rice
because of its poor quality and not being up to FCI
specifications.

Rules and set procedures for releasing the paddy for
milling commensurate with the rice delivered by the
millers to the central pool were flouted defiantly and
the miller-official nexus made crores at the state's
expense, while the Punjab government looked the other
way. In fact, the economic value of nearly 2 lakh tonnes
of missing paddy as alleged by the Bharatiya Kisan Union
(BKU) works out to around Rs 100 crore.

Senior departmental officials defended their
concessions to mill paddy and not deliver the rice to
the central pool on the plea that the FCI did not accept
it.

FCI Senior Regional Manager Sarvesh Kaushal says that
of the 27 lakh tonnes of paddy procured by the FCI
through its agencies, 'only' 16,000 tonnes had been
pilfered by the millers, and criminal action had been
launched against those guilty.

BKU secretary Balbir Singh Rajewala has alleged that
Rs 10 to Rs 15 per quintal of paddy was given as
goodwill money to officials overseeing the operations,
which roughly comes to Rs 10 crore per lakh tonnes. A
thorough probe into the assets of the past and present
chairmen and managing directors of the procurement
agencies would rip open the methodology of corruption in
the 'granary of India', he suggests.

Jai Maharaj <j...@mantra.com> Jyotishi
%:%:%:%:%:%:%:%:%:%:%:%:%:%:%:%:%:%:%:%:% Om Shanti %:%:%

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