LUCKNOW: Cracking a whip against corrupt officials, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, on Thursday, suspended 11 senior officers including two DMs –JB Singh of Gonda and Kumar Prashant of Fatehpur – on finding irregularities in PDS and wheat purchases in the two districts. Moreover, the CMO was also receiving the complaints against the two DMs of allegedly letting the mining mafia having a field day in two districts.
The state bureaucracy which is already under fire for non-performance and failing to implement government schemes, was found at the receiving end on Thursday when both the DMs were put on suspension. Orders were also issued to lodge FIR against them for the anomalies and laxity.
Meanwhile, through a separate order, Anjaneya Kumar was appointed DM Fatehpur and Prabhansh Kumar Srivastava was sent to Gonda in the same capacity on Thursday.
In an official statement released here, the CM said that the action against the senior officials should make it amply clear to everyone in the administration that the state government had the policy of zero-tolerance towards corruption at every level. The government would not spare senior officials for any irregularity.
As per the sources, in Gonda, several irregularities were found in the supply of foodgrains meant for PDS.
An FIR was lodged against Gonda DM JB Singh along with district supply officer Rajiv Kumar and District Food Marketing officer Ajay Vikram Singh. In the entire episode, laxity was found on part of the DM who failed to supervise the distribution properly.
To corroborate the charges, a team of officials spotted over 9000 sacs of food grains, meant for PDS, dumped in a godown. Actually, the stock of food grains, which had to be distributed in the district under Right to Food Act, was dumped by the officials to push it for black marketing surreptitiously.
The state government ordered action against three more officers of Devipattan division in connection with irregularities in distribution of food grains.
Meanwhile, in Fatehpur, huge anomalies were detected in purchase of wheat. As per state government sources, it was found that wheat purchase centres in Fatehpur had not bought anything from the farmers after May 13, this year. Moreover, it came to light that the officers concerned had not distributed token to the farmers who bring their produce for selling. This was considered allegedly a deliberate attempt to curtail purchases in the district.
“On May 31, during an inspection by the food department, no wheat purchase was found from May 13 till date and there was no reason mentioned for it," said the state government spokesman.
In order to fix the responsibility at the highest level, the CM ordered suspension of DM Kumar Prashant along with six other officers involved in the process. Moreover, an FIR was also lodged against all of them.
However, the food commissioner had proposed lodging of FIRs against the erring officials of Fatehpur on Wednesday itself.
Meanwhile, the axe of action also fell on Balkar Singh, former director of mining department. Singh was issued a show-cause notice on Thursday for failing to join as Basti DM even after 15 days of government order. However, his transfer order was cancelled and Dr Rajshekhar was sent to Basti as DM.