Zero tolerance towards bungling in procurement : Lal Chand Kataruchak -

– M/s Bhai Lehna Ji Rice Mills blacklisted for 3 years

Chandigarh, 31 October 2022 : The Punjab Government is scrupulously adhering to the policy of zero tolerance towards any bungling in procurement during the ongoing paddy procurement season and is taking strong action against those indulging in the malpractices as the Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann led State Government has pledged to ensure a transparent and clean governance model.

Disclosing this, the Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Minister Mr. Lal Chand Kataruchak said that as part of this, M/s Bhai Lehna Ji Rice Mills, Bariwala has been blacklisted for 3 years and its paddy allotment also stands cancelled.

The Minister further said that the C.V.C. team of the Department enquired into the paddy stock of the mill and found that the Mill has excess paddy to the tune of 8000 sacks (3000 Quintals) and its Government price is Rs. 75 lakhs. “Hoarding of such a nature is simply intolerable as it has direct adverse effect on the farming sector of the State”, added the Minister.

Divulging more, the Principal Secretary of the department Rahul Bhandari said that on October 29th, 2022, the vigilance team of the department conducted actual checking of the said mill allotted to the Markfed agency. The abovesaid corruption came to light when the stock lying in the interim procurement centre set up in the mill and the paddy sent to the mill from various procurement centres by Markfed, were matched. A total of 45102 sacks were found instead of 39563 in the mill while the interim procurement centre contained 2863 sacks of paddy instead of 402. Hence, the mill had 5539 and the interim procurement Centre had 2461 excess sacks of paddy. He said it seems that the miller procured the paddy in an unauthorized manner and on low prices with the intent to recycle the same thus defrauding the State exchequer.

Keeping in view this, the action has been initiated by the District Allotment Committee, Sri Muktsar Sahib as per the custom milling policy 2022-23 to cancel the allotment of the said mill and blacklist it for 3 years. Due to the cancellation of the allotment, the paddy stored in the premises has been ordered to be shifted to the other mills at the risk and cost of the miller. Apart from this, the process to denotify the mill as interim Centre has also been started.

Besides, During the Kharif season 2022-23, the State Government has waged a consistent campaign to put a stop to the menace of bringing the paddy/rice procured from the other States at low prices into Punjab and selling the same here apart from nipping the menace of bogus billing of paddy/rice in the bud so as to put the brakes on the recycling of the paddy/rice. The State Government has adopted a policy of not tolerating such malpractices and would take strict action against the guilty and in case any Government employee is found indulging in such nefarious activities then they would also face severe action.