Fuel theft: Ludhiana MC chief orders suspension of chief sanitary inspector, two other staffers

Mayor Balkar Sandhu had marked an inquiry after MC secretary Jasdev Sekhon suspected that employees of MC’s Zone C office have been getting fuel allocated against three defunct tractors

Municipal commissioner Pardeep Sabharwal has ordered suspension of a chief sanitary inspector Jagtar Singh and two sanitary inspectors, Gurinder Singh and Satinderjit Singh Bawa, on Wednesday after their role in fuel theft was pointed out in an inquiry conducted by MC joint commissioner Swati Tiwana.

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The employees have been stopped from coming to duty and their cases have been recommended to the local bodies department for suspension.

Further, services of a contractual driver, Kulwant Singh, have been terminated.

In the orders issued by Sabharwal, chargesheets against the suspended employees have also been recommended to the local bodies department.

In September, mayor Balkar Sandhu had marked an inquiry after MC secretary Jasdev Sekhon suspected that employees of MC’s Zone C office have been getting fuel allocated against three defunct tractors.

Satinderjit was already suspended after the mayor had caught him and a driver for stealing 43 litres of fuel allocated for a fogging machine. An official, requesting anonymity, said that Tiwana has also recommended action against audit department staff who failed to check anomalies in the log books of employees. Tiwana said, “After the mayor marked an inquiry, I checked the log books of the employees for the period from January to May 2020. Even when tractors were not in working condition, the employees got fuel allocated for them. Entries regarding the routes were also not marked properly.”