Two HAFED employees suspended; SIT formed to probe ‘proxy procurement’ racket

Parveen Arora / Tribune News Service

Two more rice mills in Assandh block have come under the scanner after a joint team of HAFED and the CM Flying Squad separately detected a shortage of nearly 25,000 quintals of paddy during physical verification.

District Manager (DM), HAFED, Kirpal Das has lodged a complaint with Assandh police against both mills. Till the filing of this report, no FIR had been registered.

Meanwhile, two HAFED employees — Ashok Kumar, Field Inspector-cum-Store Keeper, and Surinder Kumar, Senior Manager — have been suspended for their alleged involvement in the irregularities.

Earlier, on November 5, the then DM, Amit Sharma, had been suspended by HAFED’s Managing Director after discrepancies surfaced during a verification exercise on November 4 at Radhe Radhe Rice Mill and Agarwal Rice Mill, where shortages of 15,500 quintals and 8,910 quintals were found, respectively.

Re-verification was later ordered under the supervision of the newly appointed DM, Kirpal Das, who confirmed the findings.

“Physical verification was conducted again at Radhe Radhe Rice Mill to reconfirm the findings by the CM Flying Squad on November 5, which confirmed the same shortfall. I have filed a complaint against both mill owners for necessary action,” said Das.

Officials suspect that “proxy procurement” — where fake entries are made to show paddy purchases that never took place — may have been carried out. “Only a police investigation can reveal the truth,” they added.

Confirming the development, SP Karnal Ganga Ram Punia said, “We have received the complaint and appropriate action will be taken.”

So far, three FIRs have been registered in Karnal district in connection with paddy procurement irregularities, involving two Market Committee secretaries (from Karnal and Taraori), one rice miller and five procurement officials. No arrests have been made yet, but police teams are conducting raids to trace the accused.

Preliminary investigation suggests that fake procurement entries were created to show paddy arrivals that never reached grain markets, causing substantial financial losses to the state exchequer.

An SIT headed by a DSP-rank officer has been constituted to probe the cases. It includes members of CIA-2, police from the stations concerned and cyber experts. “The SIT will unearth the nexus at the earliest,” said an official.

Investigators are tracing the full trail of the so-called “ghost paddy” — from registration of farmers on the Meri Fasal Mera Byora portal to issuance of gate passes and disbursement of payments for the alleged fake arrivals. The probe also aims to identify commission agents, procurement agencies and rice mills that may have played a role in the racket.

Published Date: November 12, 2025