CHENNAI: Minister for Food and Civil Supplies R Sakkarapani on Wednesday informed the Assembly that a CB-CID investigation is on into an alleged scam at Direct Procurement Centres (DPC).During the debate on grants for civil supplies and cooperation, AIADMK’s R Kamaraj said that when the AIADMK was in power, around 1,000 bags of paddy were procured at every DPCs; at present, however, only 500 were being procured. He said farmers are suffering because of this.
Sakkarapani responded by saying that traders sold paddy at several DPCs in the name of farmers. He raised an incident in Ranipet as an example. Three DPCs, two of them at Sirukaruppur and Thathtavadi, were inspected following several complaints. The inspection showed that paddy worth Rs3.28 crore was sold by traders in the name of farmers. A family, as per its land document, was supposed to harvest only 260 bags of paddy. But, 14,240 bags of paddy were sold in its name.Following this, eight staff of Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation (TNCSC) were suspended and a CB-CID investigation has been initiated into the ‘excess’ procurement at DPCs.