Cong seeks CM’s resignation, HC-monitored probe `6,000 CR UNSETTLED ACCOUNTS WITH FCI IN 2010: MANPREET

Thursday, 21/04/2016

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CHANDIGARH: Accusing the Punjab government of “embezzling” `12,000-crore food-grain stock by failing to lift it but securing cash credit limit from the Centre every procurement season, the opposition Congress on Wednesday demanded the resignation of chief minister Parkash Singh Badal.

Addressing the media at Congress Bhawan here, party’s senior vice-president Lal Singh said the Badal government had left a legacy of `2,000-crore diversion of funds from the cash credit limit even when it had gone out of power in 2002. “The Congress came to power in March 2002 and the wheat procurement season started in April. The-then Atal Bihari Vajpayee government refused to give Punjab money, owing to fund diversion by the previous government. Then Union finance minister Jaswant Singh told us the Centre would not pay the cash credit limit (CCL) directly to our treasury but require us to make a new nodal agency, Pungrain. It took us three years to settle the accounts and there was no crisis of CCL or lifting of food grains during our entire tenure,” said Lal Singh, who was food and civil supplies minister in the government of Captain Amarinder Singh.

Appointed by Punjab Congress president Amarinder to monitor wheat procurement crisis in the state, Lal Singh said: “It is a big scandal. We demand the resignation of the CM and an inquiry monitored by the Punjab and Haryana high court. Even during the last wheat procurement season, the CCL was released and food grains lifted after Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi visited Punjab mandis. Close to 30 banks, led by the State Bank of India, decided on Tuesday not to sanction any advance to the Punjab government. The loading of wheat is assigned to arhityas (commission agants) and the unloading to other agencies. There is no coordination between the two,” said Lal Singh.

On Amarinder’s North American tour at this crucial time, he said the Congress had not left the ground and party leaders and workers would fan out to Punjab mandis to ensure that farmers were not harassed. Later, senior party leaders, including Preneet Kaur, Manpreet Singh Badal, MP Santokh Singh Chaudhary, ex-MP Vijay Inder Singla, and poll strategist Prashant Kishor, had a meeting. Speaking on the sidelines of the Congress meeting, party leader Manpreet Badal said the unsettled accounts with the Food Corporation of India (FCI) during his tenure as Punjab finance minister were to the tune of `6,000 crore. “When I was negotiating a `35,000-crore debt waiver with then Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, one of the bargaining chips was the unsettled dues of the FCI in Punjab’s books on account of incidentals. We had requested him to make the FCI pay us that amount so that we can adjust it as a book entry towards debt paid to the Union government. But the state government did not agree to the Centre’s conditions for debt settlement and we were unable to settle the FCI accounts. The Punjab bureaucracy is quite courageous when it comes to cover up,” he said.

‘COME CLEAN’
“The Punjab government will have to come out clean on the bungling of food grains,” said Manpreet, adding: “The entire milling industry of Punjab has been tainted and the buck stops at the CM’s door.”