Trucks used to transport paddy in Punjab to be traced by CAG audit
According to claims made by the FCI and the agencies, 3,319 vehicles were hired to transport paddy to FCI godowns, but CAG could verify only 87 of these vehicles, of which 15 are two-wheelers.
It's like Harry Houdini's 'vanishing elephant' act. In Punjab, state government agencies can transport paddy by 3,232 trucks that are actually invisible. And for that crores of rupees can be paid to the transporters for moving the food stock to the Food Corporation of India (FCI) godowns.
In other words, the food chain in Punjab is hit by loads of lies in the shape of 3,232 vehicles. It has now come to light that in the state, FCI hired four top nodal state government agencies that transported paddy by 3,232 trucks that don't exist; and in certain cases even by "trucks" that actually looked like scooters and motor cycles, or were too rickety even to move. And several crores of rupees were paid to the transporters as the cost for transporting paddy by such questionable "trucks" between 2009 and 2014. Data provided by these state agencies on at least 3,232 trucks led to a large dark hole, as no record regarding registration of these vehicles could be traced by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India.
According to claims made by the FCI and the agencies, 3,319 vehicles were hired to transport paddy to FCI godowns, but CAG could verify only 87 of these vehicles, of which 15 are two-wheelers. These 15 vehicles included three scooters, three motor cycles, four cars, one tractor, one three-wheeler, one jeep and one towing truck. No record for rest of the "trucks" could be verified due to lack of concrete information.
Red-flagged
Appalled by the falsity of the data, the CAG has now red-flagged the claims made by the FCI and the nodal agencies-Punjab State Warehousing Corporation (PSWC), Punjab Agro Foods Corporation, Punjab Grains Procurement Corporation Ltd. (PUNGRAIN) and Punjab State Civil Supplies Corporation Limited (PUNSUP) besides the FCI staff- that were hired to transport the paddy to FCI godowns.
"The system could trace only 87 vehicles out of which 15 (17.24 per cent) vehicles, said to be used for transportation, were other than trucks (three scooters, three motor cycles, four cars, one tractor trailer, one three wheeler, one jeep and one towing truck). Hence, the transportation of paddy through these vehicles is doubtful," the report said.
The CAG report said that the registration records pertaining to the other 3,232 vehicles hired by the four Punjab nodal agencies were missing. It was also found during the audit that some of the vehicles claimed to have been hired either did not exist or were rickety. Some were hired from other states for which no record was available with the agencies and the transportation department.
"The SGAs (state government agencies) had provided hard copies of the registration numbers of the vehicles used in transportation and audit had selected nonrepetitive 3,319 vehicles at random of 31 mandis. These numbers were put to the data bank of Vehicle Registration Authority of the government. Out of this, the data bank could not trace the registration information in respect of 3,232 (97.38 per cent) vehicles being registered out of state or being very old and not fed in the computerised data of the transport authority," it said.
The CAG report said that the expenditure on transportation of paddy and rice within and beyond eight kilometres is a huge component of cost for SGAs, and a major portion of this is not being reimbursed by the FCI. A test check of 16 district offices of four procuring agencies by audit, in the four selected districts of the SGAs, revealed the misuse of transportation charges. The FCI and four leading nodal agencies paid Rs 13.86 crore to various transporters as transportation cost for lifting 4.36 lakh MT of paddy between 2009 and 2014.
"Out of 16 district offices of four SGAs, seven district offices of three agencies involving 751 mandis (markets) in 21 crop years did not provide information to audit relating to the number of vehicles used for transportation of paddy, which constituted 19.92 per cent of the total transportation cost," the report said.
The CAG report said the other nine offices, which provided information, furnished incomplete registration numbers of 41,033 vehicles used in 146 mandis in 23 crop years (taking five crop years of each district office-from 2009-10 to 2013-14) from which it is not possible for the district offices of audit to verify the genuineness of the same.
"The audit is not in a position to comment on the authenticity of the transportation of 4.36 lakh MT of paddy involving an expenditure of `13.86 crore constituting 4.51 per cent of total transportation cost," says the report.