Food Supply Team unearths bogus billing fraud in Muktsar –Ashu
KI Singh/ royalpatiala.in/ Chandigarh
Claiming that the vigilance team of Food and Civil Supplies Department is leaving no stone unearth to check the recycling of out of State paddy in the local markets, Bharat Bhushan Ashu , Food and Civil Supplies Minister Punjab informed that the surprise check on Friday in a Sheller premises in Muktsar has unearthed a bogus billing fraud by the mill owner.
Giving details, he said that the officers of the department suspected M/s. RK Vishal Rice and General Mills, Bariwala, District Muktsar of shady deal. The raid in the sheller and the subsequent physical verification revealed that the owner had shown purchases made from local mandis in his record without actually having done so. In fact, the stock was found short of over 9000 bags of paddy which were shown allegedly purchased from local mandis.
According to the record 83303 bags (each 37.5 kg) amounting to 3123 tonnes of paddy was stored in the mill till November 23. But, on the spot only 74281 bags with 2785 tonnes of paddy were found revealing shortage of 9022 bags (each 37.5 kg) (338 tonnes) of paddy at the mill.
Besides bogus billing, the team of inspection officers found empty bags of out of state paddy including those from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. This brought to fore the fact that the miller had shown the paddy in his sheller by bogus billing from the market, while the paddy had not actually come to the mill and the miller was completing its requisite stock of the paddy by procuring cheap paddy from other states.
Further investigation is on, informed the Minister and said that action will be taken on the mill as per the provisions of custom milling policy 2019-20.
