E-Paper
87,100 quintal wheat missing from Pungrain godowns in Jandiala Guru
Custodian inspector of warehouses absconding, booked; volume of siphoned off grain may grow as checking is underway
At least 8,7160 quintal wheat has gone missing from the warehouses of the Punjab Grains Procurement Corporation Limited (Pungrain) in Jandiala Guru sub-division of Amritsar district.
The state food and civil supplies department has got a case registered against the warehouses’ custodian inspector Jasdev Singh, who is absconding. Since the scam came to the fore, the department’s teams have been checking all four godowns in the sub-division since Friday. If calculated at the minimum support price (MSP), the value of the siphoned of grain comes out at more than ₹16 crore.
The volume of the missing wheat may grow further as checking is still underway, said department officials.
In the police complaint, food and supply inspector Raj Rishi Mehra said, “Assistant food and supply officer (Jandiala Guru) Arshdeep Singh brought it to my notice on August 3 that they were not able to establish contact with Jasdev Singh since July 31 and he was also keeping his mobile phone switched off. Neither he nor any of his family members were found at his house. Arshdeep expressed an apprehension that Jasdev Singh may have been involved in certain misdeed.”
“As per records, the Food Corporation of India (FCI) was to get a “special load” of wheat at the Gehri railway station in the district. It is mandatory for the custodian inspector to be present in the godown at the time of a “special load”. But Jasdev Singh was not duty that day,” Mehra said.
“So it was decided to get the godowns under the supervision of Jasdev Singh check so as to ascertain the actual status of the stock. During the checking, a total of 1,93,343 bags of wheat were found missing from the godowns in the sub-division,” he added.
The Pungrain, an undertaking of the department of food and civil supplies, looks after the purchase, storage and dispatch of the grain in the state.
A case was registered against the custodian inspector and unidentified persons under sections 409 (criminal breach of trust by a public servant, banker, merchant or an agent), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), and 120 (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code at the Jandiala police station, said investigating officer Durlabhdarshan Singh.
