Racket involved in pilfering wheat meant for Atta-Dal scheme busted

Tribune News Service

PK Jaiswar

Amritsar, January 5

Officials of the Food and Civil Supply Department havebusted a racket, which was allegedly involved in pilfering government wheat meant for distribution under the Atta-Dal scheme and Mid-Day Meal Scheme.

A team of the department confiscated over 145 quintals of wheat from a truck following a tip-off. A preliminary probe pointed out that the confiscated wheat was being diverted to a flour mill in Pathankot. Investigations were on to identify the flour mill and its owner.

The police arrested the driver of the truck along with the trader who picked up the government wheat and sold it to the Pathankot flour mill. They were identified as Gopal Das of Pathankot and Jaspal Singh of Ramdas. A case under Sections 379, 411, 420 and 120-B of the IPC was registered in this connection. The police also nominated a Batala resident, Bittu, who procured the same from Jaspal Singh.

The truck was seized by a flying squad team of the Food and Civil Supply Department headed by Inspector Vinod Khosla.

As per the complaint, the vigilance wing of the department received a tip-off that certain traders from Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan were allegedly pilfering Punjab’s wheat from ration depots of border districts and later diverting them to Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh in illegal manner. The wheat was meant for distribution under the Atta-Dal scheme and Mid-Day Meal scheme.

Following this, a naka was set up in Ramdas area where a truck (PB-06-G-9213) was intercepted. On quizzing, the truck driver, Gopal Dass, revealed that the wheat belonged to Jaspal Singh of Ramdas. He sold the same to another trader, identified as Bittu of Batala. However, he could not produce any documents regarding the procurement of grains.

The truck was detained by the Ramdas police and Jaspal Singh was summoned. On his disclosure, the department’s team reached his storage point where they found 300 empty bags of 30-kg wheat released under the National Food Security Act and 35 empty sacks of 50-kg wheat. These bags had stamps of the Punjab Government. Jaspal could not give satisfactory answers to the queries hinting that the same was meant for public distribution and was released to ration depot holders. The wheat unloaded at storage points were further sold to private traders after filling it into private bags.

The police said further investigations were underway to unearth the entire racket. Many ration depot holders would also be brought to book after further investigations.

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