Ex-Punjab minister Manoranjan Kalia demands CBI probe in distribution of Central govt sponsored food grains in Punjab

JALANDHAR: Former Punjab minister and senior BJP leader Manoranjan Kalia has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking CBI enquiry into the distribution of food grains sent by the Central government to state government for the poor during lockdown.
Mentioning that Union government sent 70,725 metric tons of grains and 10,000 metric tons of pulses to Punjab and state government on its own distributed 24.69 lakh packets of food grains to the poor during the period of lockdown, Kalia has pointed out that when the Covid-19 Control Room of the Punjab Govt. asked for detail of the packets distributed from the districts, the account of 10.67 lakh packets was found to have been missing.
"It is pertinent to note that the Food & Civil Supplies Department of Punjab government was the Nodal Agency for the distribution of the food grains sent by Central government but the packets of food grains under Atam Nirbhar Bharat Package were found to have been stored in private places in the custody of private persons after the lockdown period was over and the period of Unlock-2 had started,” Kalia alleged.
Stating that this episode of storage was caught on cameras in Jalandhar a fortnight back, Kalia argued that there was every likelihood that similar illegal storage was done in in other district too.
"Food grains under Atam Nirbhar Bharat Package were meant for migratory labour and for the poor not covered under National Food Security Act (NFSA). The migratory labour who migrated during lockdown has not yet returned and their food grains under Atam Nirbhar Bharat Package must have been with the Food & Supplies Department of the State as being undistributed. If Congress Govt. in Punjab has failed to keep the record of its own 24.69 lakh packets of food grains, there is a large scale bungling in the distribution of food grains sent by Central Govt. under category 2& 3 mentioned above,” he wrote while urging the PM to institute an enquiry by CBI.