All rice mills under scanner ( Jharkhand): Ansari

A day after authorities sealed a rice mill in Jamtara district in connection to the alleged smuggling of PDS commodity to Bangladesh, state food and civil supplies minister Irfan Ansari on Wednesday said that he has directed the authorities concerned to plug the leakages and racketeering by conducting surprise checks of all the mills across the state.

Ansari, who is also the health minister, added that besides PDS, they have decided to also scan medicine suppliers’ network to curb any instances of spurious medicines in the markets.

“Today, I have directed authorities concerned to begin the drive. No irregularities be it in PDS or health will be tolerated under my regime,” he said over phone, adding that a team from Ranchi too will reach Jamtara to conduct an independent probe and fix accountability.Acting on a tip-off, a joint team of Jamtara district administration and police conducted an operation at Rameshwaram Rice Mill in Bena on Tuesday evening and seized a large quantity of Food Corporation of India (FCI) rice labelled as ‘Republic of Bangladesh’. A total of 32 quintals of PDS rice was seized from the mill. Officials claimed that the rice mill operated like an organized syndicate and the rice was being illegally sent to Bangladesh, and PDS rice was being also repackaged and sold in other markets.

Talking to TOI, the minister claimed that the owner of the mill, who is currently at large, enjoyed political patronage of a particular party. He, however, didn’t specify the name, but sources close to him hinted towards opposition parties.

Ansari maintained that the probe will also explore if this smuggling case is also linked with any ‘terror’ funding or not.”The owner of the rice mill in question was earlier arrested for medicine smuggling across international borders,” he claimed.

This article was been republished from The Times of India