Cop exposes shoeddy deal

CHANDIGARH: Rattled after the issue of sub-standard shoes, which were a part of the police uniform, was raised by constable Jagjeet Singh, Chandigarh police have decided to return 2,032 pairs of shoes, of 6,749, to a Rajasthan-based company that manufactured and supplied them.
These were purchased from the company in January and within days of being issued to cops, the shoes started getting damaged and faded.
The decision of UT police to return the shoes to the firm was conveyed to Jagjeet through an RTI reply. The police department has also flashed a wireless message to all police stations, units and cells to return the damaged shoes at police lines, Sector 26.
DSP (lines) Suman Kumar said the department has sent a recommendation to UT IG R P Upadhyay for his approval. The firm had charged Rs 750 for each pair from the UT police.
Over 6,000 pairs of shoes were purchased after floating e-tender in January 2014. And before buying them, four samples were sent to Footwear Development Design Industry (FDDI) — a testing centre in UP.
Sources in police said when the cop started filing RTI queries in March about the sub-standard shoes, 4,378 pairs, of 6,749, had already been distributed among cops, sleuths of IRB and non-gazetted officers.
Jagjeet said, "For proving their poor quality, I did a survey on over 300 cops and submitted its findings to senior police officers. On June 1, I got a reply to my RTI application that the shoes had been returned to the firm."
Earlier, Jagjeet had also complained to CBI that senior officers took money from their "trusted staff members for transferring cops to their favourite posts". He had written a letter to senior CBI officers in Delhi and Chandigarh. The CBI felt that the matter was internal and recommended probe by senior UT officers. The UT administration marked a probe and asked IG to submit a report in May 2014. The report is still pending.