A mess! Took money to buy paddy but did not give rice to SFC, now action on 233 packs that wasted Rs 58 crore

58.31 crore, neither the PACS have been returned to the bank nor are they giving account of the amount. The list released by the Secretary includes all 33 districts except Supaul, Bhagalpur, Darbhanga, Begusarai and Khagaria.

Nishant Nandan Hindustan, MuzaffarpurThu, 24 Oct 2024 02:30 AM share

Out of 255 PACS of Bihar which had collected funds from the government last year in the name of paddy procurement, 233 PACS have proved to be defaulters. These PACS withdrew government money from the bank in the name of purchasing paddy, but did not supply rice to SFC in exchange for that paddy. The department has started preparations to take action against these 233 PACS which cost the government Rs 58.31 crore. Secretary of Cooperative Department, Dharmendra Singh has now ordered the cooperative officers of the concerned 33 districts to take action. Releasing the list, the Secretary has said that in the last season, these PACS of the state withdrew Rs 62.31 crore from the bank in the name of purchasing paddy, but returned only Rs 3.90 crore of rice to the government.

The remaining 58.31 crore packs have neither been returned to the bank nor are they giving account of the amount. The list released by the Secretary includes all 33 districts except Supaul, Bhagalpur, Darbhanga, Begusarai and Khagaria. The Secretary has ordered the Cooperative Officers of these districts to immediately file an FIR in the matter and if recovery is not made even after that.

About 150 PACs from North Bihar proved to be defaulters.

The list of 233 defaulter PACS released by the Cooperative Department includes about 150 PACS from North Bihar. According to the list, six packs from Muzaffarpur, 19 from Madhubani, five from Samastipur, four from Shivhar, three from Sitamarhi, seven from Vaishali, 11 from West Champaran, 65 from East Champaran and 10 from Gopalganj are included.

Following the instructions of the Secretary, the Cooperative Officer of these districts has on one hand issued a notice to the PACS, on the other hand a recommendation to run the auction is being sent to the district administration. It is noteworthy that last year also the PACS had not given account of the amount of paddy purchase, and FIR has also been registered against those PACS.