Chandigarh, June 27 () Punjab BJP president Kewal Singh Dhillon on Saturday termed the subsidized urea fertilizer supplied by the central government to Punjab farmers not only as an administrative failure of the state’s Aam Aadmi Party government but also a big corruption racket operating under government patronage.
He said that thousands of bags of subsidized urea reaching government plants like Markfed and Milkfed would not have been possible without government connivance and patronage at the highest level. Dhillon demanded an impartial CBI investigation into the entire matter.
Dhillon said that the central government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is spending crores of rupees to provide subsidized urea to reduce the financial burden on farmers.
He further said that the Central Government is providing a bag of 45 kg fertilizer to the farmers for just Rs 266 instead of Rs 2,800, while on the other hand, the fertilizer mafia with the support of the Punjab Government is allegedly depriving the farmers of this benefit by sending subsidized fertilizer to government plants and factories.
He said it was extremely shameful that thousands of bags of subsidized fertilizers reached four government plants without documentation or batch numbers. He said this clearly shows that such a huge scam would not have been possible without the connivance of senior government officials and political patrons.
Dhillon further said that he had earlier also raised the issue of shortage of urea and DAP fertilizers with the central government.
He said the BJP-led central government supplied more fertilizer than the requirement of farmers. However, the alleged scam and misappropriation of subsidized fertilizer meant for farmers proves that a corrupt government is running in the state.
The state BJP president said that merely registering cases against private companies in such a big scam would be mere pretense.
He said that the state government is directly responsible for this and demanded a CBI inquiry and also demanded strict action against all the culprits, so that the truth of the scam comes to light.
—
ms/
