The Barak Democratic Front (BDF), a newly floated political party in Assam’s Barak Valley, has demanded a CBI probe into the alleged scam at the Food Corporation of India (FCI) office in Silchar.
The BDF, which was formed last year by founder-president of All Cachar Karimganj Hailakandi Students’ Association, Pradip Dutta Roy, in a letter to CBI, alleged that massive anomalies and malpractices have taken place at the Divisional Office (DO) of FCI in Silchar.
The party has brought as many as 20 charges against the officials including the Silchar divisional manager (DM) and general manager (GM) of the FCI.
The BDF alleged that not a single depot inspection was carried out by the Divisional Manager, Silchar as well as GM (Assam) during his tenure which was a mandatory requirement.
It further alleged that Weight Bridge at Salchapra was manipulated with the help of a private service engineer.
“We have received information from reliable sources that Divisional Manager, Silchar has done Forgery in the notesheet no. 09 of Legal file no. 37(5) / Legal I General / Corres I Pt.I / 2020,” alleged BDF.
The BDF further said that several entries in the DAK register during the tenure of Ajay Kumar has been forged and additional entries have been made as A & B.
The contractor’s bill has been passed without resolving the observations of the file, alleged the party.
It also alleged that all the contractors’ bills were kept pending until they give a 1% bribe.
“Rs 1.35 crores of contractor’s bills have been passed during the last 8 days tenure of Ajay Kumar and 1% has been taken as bribe by him for releasing the bills before leaving Silchar,” claimed BDF.
Earlier in February last year, two former general managers (GM) of the FCI landed in the Bureau of Investigation Economic Offence (BIEO)’s net in connection with a multi-crore scam of missing rice truckloads.
Former general managers Lakheswar Saikia and GSS Raja Shekhar were arrested by BIEO sleuths in Guwahati.
However, the FCI officials it seems are not interested to learn any lesson from those cases.
In 2013-14, a total of 111 truckloads of rice worth Rs 5 crore (suit value) were stolen by FCI contractors allegedly in connivance with FCI officials.