Excess paddy arrival in Kapurthala suspected; 10 verification teams formed
The verifications teams will check the excess paddy arrival and ascertain if any action needs to be taken to check such suspicious coming in of harvested paddy.
Jalandhar In a bid to check ‘suspicious arrival’ of paddy in Kapurthala grain markets, deputy commissioner Deepti Uppal has formed 10 verification teams to check on the same. The food and civil supplies department had sent a directive to Kapurthala after seven mandis, Bharoana; Ramidi; Dhaliwal Bet; Paramjit Pura; Merripur; Kamalpur and Baler Khanpur were found to see this ‘suspiciously’ high arrival of the crop. The district’s special verification campaign will start from Monday.

In early October, Kapurthala Police had booked three people including a sheller owner, for illegally stocking over 5,000 quintal of paddy brought from other states. The teams of central vigilance committee of food and civil supply department of Punjab recovered 5,362 quintal of paddy, meant for public distribution system, which were brought from the other states at a meagre price and sold in Punjab at a high rate.
“To ascertain that these paddy arrivals are authentic, it has been decided that in all such mandis where the arrival or procurement is equal to or more than the arrival of the Kharif Marketing Season (2018-19 or 2019-2020) is higher, a committee comprising officials of departments of revenue, agriculture and mandi board, needs to be constituted for each such mandi,” the letter from the food and civil supplies department to the DC adds.
Official figures state that nearly 6.74 lakh tonne of paddy has arrived in the district till October 31, of which 6 lakh tonne has been lifted and nearly ₹1,231 crore of payment released to farmers..
A senior official of the food and civil supplies department, seeking anonymity, said there were two factors behind increased arrivals. The first that paddy from other states was being sold in the grain market; and the second variations were recorded due to the construction of a new grain market.