The Khanna police have registered a case against several individuals, including the General Manager of the Punjab State Cooperative Milk Producer Federation Limited cattle feed plant on GT Road, Bhattian, Khanna, as well as the owners of Indo Organics from Gidderbaha, Muktsar, and Manisha Trading Company from Bhajanpura, New Delhi, for alleged misuse of subsidised urea.
FIR Registered Based on Agriculture Department Complaint
The FIR was filed at Khanna’s City Police Station 2 on the statement of Agriculture Development Officer Gurpreet Kaur. Following instructions from SSP Darpan Ahluwalia, the police have intensified the investigation, and other officials and private company employees may also face action.
Preliminary investigations revealed that subsidised neem-coated urea, intended for agricultural use, was supplied to the cattle feed plant instead of technical-grade urea, which is required for industrial purposes. The subsidised urea was allegedly used for industrial applications, thereby taking unfair advantage of government subsidies. This is expected to cause a loss of crores of rupees to the government treasury.
Agriculture Department Raid Recovers 1,340 Bags
A team from the Agriculture Department raided the Khanna Cattle Feed Plant, collected urea samples, and recovered 1,340 bags. The investigation uncovered that bags labeled as technical-grade urea were actually filled with subsidised, neem-coated urea meant for agricultural use.
According to a copy of the FIR obtained by The Tribune, samples were sent for testing to the Fertiliser Testing Laboratory. The results indicated that the bags of technical-grade urea present in the feed factory contained agriculture-grade neem-coated urea, which is available on subsidy to farmers from the Central Government. Only agriculture-grade urea available on subsidy is coated with neem oil, whereas technical urea for industrial use should have zero neem oil content.
Conspiracy to Misuse Subsidised Fertiliser
The FIR alleges that technical urea supplier companies Indo Organics and Manisha Trading Company misused the subsidised neem-coated urea by printing technical urea bags for their financial gain. The unauthorised fertiliser was then sold to the feed factory through a tender at an inflated price, in connivance with the GM of the cattle feed plant and other officers and employees.
SSP Darpan Ahluwalia stated that the subsidy amount on neem-coated urea fertiliser intended for farmers had been used for personal gains in an illegal manner, constituting fraud and misappropriation of government money. “The cooperative cattle feed plant had earlier floated tenders to procure technical-grade urea, but the urea-supplying firms, by hatching a conspiracy, supplied subsidised neem-coated urea and cleverly packed it in bags labelled as technical-grade urea,” she said.
