BKU warns of stir if govt fails to ensure probe by CBI

FARM LEADERS GIVE ONE-WEEK ULTIMATUM; SAY THE SCAM IS MUCH BIGGER IN REALITY

CHANDIGARH: The Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) on Tuesday threatened to launch a stir across Haryana from next week if the government by then fails to ask the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe into the paddy procurement scam.

Addressing newspersons here, BKU leaders Gurnam Singh Charuni and Rakesh Bains alleged that even though the state government had itself admitted that a ₹90-crore fraud was detected in the paddy procurement, the scam in actuality was much more bigger.

They alleged that it was a huge scam involving millers, commission agents as well as some government officials.

The fraud had come to light when the rice millers claimed that they had met the paddy procurement target of 64-lakh tonnes. Farmers had, meanwhile, claimed that most of their produce was lying in state mandis while commission agents and millers bought cheap paddy from neighbouring states and showed the same in their books.

It was subsequent to the farmers’ hue and cry that the government had ordered a physical inspection of millers’ stocks and detected a fraud worth at least ₹90 crore.

More than 42,500 tonnes of paddy was found to be short as per records and stocks of the rice mills, which meant that either the millers had charged from government on some bogus paddy purchase or sold the rice milled by them to other than government procurement agencies, the state government had admitted.

Charuni and Bains produced official documents which allowed paddy growers from other states to enter the Haryana mandis.

PRODUCES VIDEOS TO CORROBORATE CLAIMS

The farm leaders also showed a video made on mobile phones showing mandi gate passes being made without the presence of farmers with their produce, which they alleged were made to show bogus purchase of paddy.