However, Chautala Friday claimed that a shortfall of only 36,000 metric tonne (MT) out of total procurement of 64 lakh MT has been detected, which is just half per cent of the total procurement.
Haryana Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala Friday said that the government would order a CBI probe into the procurement of paddy if former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda makes such a demand in writing. Chautala, however, added that the probe would cover paddy procurement by the government over 10 years, including the five when Hooda was CM.
“If Hooda sahab gives in writing, we will get probed the procurement of paddy, which took place in past 10 years. The figures would reveal under whose regime the scam actually took place,” Chautala said while addressing a press conference along with Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on the completion of the 100 days of the BJP-JJP government.
Hooda, however, hit back daring Chautala to further increase the ambit of the probe to include latter’s grandfather’s tenure too. “Get the procurement that took place during your grandfather’s (Om Prakash Chautala) tenure investigated too. In fact, Chautala wants to evade the CBI probe into the matter. He should get investigated the procurement of this season only as is being demanded by the opposition,” Hooda told The Indian Express.
Haryana government officials had recently claimed detection of Rs 90-crore scam in paddy procurement and transportation process following which the government decided that from now onwards the transportation of paddy from mandis to rice mills will be done by the state Food and Civil Supplies Department and other procurement agencies instead of leaving it to the millers. The decision was taken after the government had detected a shortfall of 42,589 metric tonne (MT) paddy in its stocks at rice mills. The involvement of rice millers, procurement agencies, arhtiyas and marketing board officials is being suspected into the scam.
However, Chautala Friday claimed that a shortfall of only 36,000 metric tonne (MT) out of total procurement of 64 lakh MT has been detected, which is just half per cent of the total procurement. “One per cent of the differentiation is allowed to the millers as the weight of paddy reduces with the passage of time. Even during the regime of Hooda in 2013, a shortfall of as much as 65,000 MT was found when the procurement was just 60 per cent of this year’s paddy purchase,” said Chautala, who also holds the portfolio of food and civil supplies department.
“We have taken action against those millers wherever the shortfall is more than 1 per cent in the weight of paddy. We have kept on hold their payment of Rs 700 crore. A scam can be called only after release of the payment. We are still making recovery from them,” he added.
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