Major action has been taken in the case of alleged misuse of subsidised urea in the state. The Khanna police registered a case against several suspects, including General Manager and other employees of the Punjab State Cooperative Milk Producer Federation Limited cattle feed plant on GT Road, Bhattian, Khanna; owner of Indo Organics, from Gidderbaha, Muktsar; owner of Manisha Trading Company, Bhajanpura, New Delhi.
This FIR was registered at Khanna’s City Police Station 2, based on the statement of Agriculture Development Officer Gurpreet Kaur. On the instructions of SSP Darpan Ahluwalia, the police intensified the investigation and other officials and private company employees might also face the music.
Preliminary investigations have revealed that subsidised neem-coated urea, intended for agricultural use, was supplied to cattle feed plant instead of technical-grade urea, which is required for industrial use. As per the allegation, the subsidised urea was used for industrial purposes, thereby taking unfair advantage of government subsidies. It is likely to cause a loss of crores of rupees to the government treasury.
A team from the Agriculture Department raided the Khanna Cattle Feed Plant and took urea samples and recovered 1,340 bags. The investigation revealed that bags of technical-grade urea were filled with subsidised, neem-coated urea for agricultural use.
The copy of the FIR, which is with The Tribune, stated that after samples were sent for testing, the report was received from the Fertiliser Testing Laboratory. It is suspected that the bags of technical grade urea present in the feed factory were filled with agriculture grade neem-coated urea, available on subsidy to farmers for agricultural use by the Central Government. Only agriculture grade urea available on subsidy is coated with neem oil, whereas the quantity of the oil in technical urea for industrial use should be zero. Technical urea supplier companies Indo Organics, Manisha Trading Company, misused the semi-coated urea fertiliser available on subsidy by printing technical urea bags for their financial gains and the unauthorised fertiliser has been sold to feed factory through tender at an expensive rate in connivance with the GM of the cattle feed plant and other officers/employees in a conspiracy.
The SSP said the subsidy amount on neem-coated urea fertiliser available to farmers had been used for personal gains in an illegal manner, thereby committing fraud and misappropriation of government money.
“The cooperative cattle feed plant had earlier floated tenders to procure technical grade urea but urea supplying firms by hatching conspiracy supplied subsidised neem coated urea and cleverly packed the same in bags labelled as technical grade urea,” she said.
