FCI storage yards with wheat bought at MSP, scene across Punjab and Haryana. Water is sprinkled on wheat bags to let the grain rot, and is thrown out as waste. Sold to distilleries by “ 5-star farmers and their agents” now agitating on Delhi border. Rs 6000 to 7000 cr per year involved. Going on for 45 years. So the agitation is “only of 2 states”.
The above is a message being circulated in social media. Is it true? To what extent?
-Agitation has support across India. Agitators in lakhs are participating from nearer states, also from (western) UP and Rajasthan, not just 2 states.
-They don’t cite source, as usual with such messages. video-clip does not give place and time, or season.
– It is aimed at blaming lakhs of agitating farmers. Obviously circulated by those opposed to the agitation, or close to the rulers at Centre. “ 5-star farmers and their agents” will not be in such numbers.
-Hottest days in Punjab and Haryana during summer have 43 to 48 degrees (48 last may 2020). Grain is kept in the open, not in covered areas or godowns. Grain loses weight and quality in such temperature, and would fetch lower price and income.
– as shown, it is just sprinkling a little water on top of bags, that are covered with a piece of jute which is not enough to soak and spoil the grain.
-Union Govt that is blaming the hand of extremists, khalisthanis and extremists should have exposed this aspect and taken some serious action but it did not. Why?
– Akali BJP alliance was 24 years old, they fought 6 assembly polls together. Since 1996, they ruled for 15 years, Akalis’ Badal was CM 6 times, the first time in 1970; and continuously from 2007 to 2017, when congress defeated them, and ruling for the last 3 years.
-Akalis in alliance with BJP were chief ruling classes, leading landlords, in Punjab until defeated in 2017. BJP has urban Hindu and traders support. Now the alliance is broken after decades.
-Why is the scam not exposed by Modi govt, by Big Media, and no action taken? See the following report:
Punjab’s Rs 12,000cr food grain scam is a kick on India’s stomach
Corrupt employees of procurement agencies either make the wheat wet or replace it with rotten stock.
That is the title of the report about the scam by employees, not farmers, of Punjab Agro Industries Corporation Limited , PAIC.
Excerpts from Webmag of India today group, dailyo.in, report of 22-04-2016, are given below.
It was a period of Akali-BJP alliance in power.
It refers to wetting the grain bags “last month”, March 2016 , early summer.
“Sample this: A PAIC inspector, Ikbal Singh Brar, was caught red-handed on camera irrigating wheat bags in Ajnala, Amritsar last month. All this was done to add weight to the wheat as the stocks after procuring from the farmers are illegally sold in the market. The corrupt employees either make the wheat wet or replace the stock with rotten stock.”
“In the dock for siphoning off over Rs 12,000 crore – the money meant to procure the grains – the Punjab government has confessed that it diverted nearly Rs 900 crore from the procurement money. This was admitted by none other than the state’s minister for food and civil supplies, Adesh Partap Kairon, who is the son-in-law of chief minister Parkash Singh Badal. He said that the money was diverted to feed Badal’s ambitious Atta-Dal scheme under which free pulses and wheat flour was distributed to the poor.”
“Former Punjab leader of the Opposition and senior Congress leader Sunil Jakhar, who has registered a criminal complaint against the government for alleged food grain scam, says that the scam has been in operation for the last six years when the food grain stocks were last verified.”
“The scam is committed in three ways. One, by theft of the procured stock. The corrupt officials and officers sell the stocks illegally and try to complete it by putting water on stored wheat stock. At times the stocks are knowingly left uncovered, letting the rain gods add more weight to the stocked wheat.’
Farmers and people (tax payers ) are victims , affected by scam committed by officials-ruling politician nexus.
“ Misappropriation of funds meant to procure the stocks from farmers is the second method which plagues the system. The farmers are committing suicide as they do not get timely payments from the government. They raise loans from illegal moneylenders. The procurement agencies also commit various frauds in the name of transportation and other charges,” says Sunil Jakhar.
“Captain Amarinder Singh (Congress, now CM) said that the food grain scam may just be the proverbial tip of an iceberg as the Akali-BJP government has survived only on deceit and fraud during the last nine years.”
“What’s evident is that the state government has either raised the loans against non-existing stocks, or it has not bought the stocks after raising the loans from the banks and diverted and embezzled all this money,” observed Captain Amarinder while adding that this is a fit case of cheating, fraud and embezzlement.
“According to the former Punjab CM, this is the reason why the farmers were not getting their due payment on time even after their produce is taken away by the state’s purchasing agencies.”
The ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has categorically said that not a single grain of food stock was missing and all stock had been monitored and found in order by relevant agencies.
(Courtesy of Mail Today.)
Scam is not by farmers, but by procurement officials, backed by rulers, mostly of Akali-BJP alliance.
No action taken by the govt. then or later by Congress govt.
It is used now only to malign the farmers and condemn the agitation.
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