FAISALABAD, April 19 A messy distribution of gunny bags has surfaced in Jaranwala as supervisory committee of the wheat procurement centre has on the alleged recommendations of local parliamentarians issued 90,000 gunny bags to only three dozen selected farmers in the last four days, Dawn learned on Sunday.

The centre has around 20,000 bags left for the distribution and roughly over 80 per cent of growers are yet to avail the facility. The district government has also swung into action by dissolving the committee and promising to manage thousands of additional bags for the remaining farmers.

The district government had formed 11 centres in the district to procure wheat from farmers and every centre had a supervisory committee consisting of seven members, including representatives of the area MNA and the MPA. The purpose of the committees was to issue gunny bags and make payments to farmers without any “preferential treatment”.

However, like the mess that emerged in fertilisers` supply last year, farmers of Jaranwala are faced with a very difficult choice in selling their crop to the government.

Sources in the food department said the growers had complained to the district government that representatives of MNA Nawab Sher Wasir and MPA Shah Jahan Kharal had issued gunny bags (baar dana) to their “blue-eyed” farmers and rest of the farmers were running from pillar to post to get the facility, but to no avail.

They said only a few thousand bags were lying at the centre for the remaining over 80 per cent growers of the area. They said the bags had been issued to “selected people” only to exploit the poor farmers.

They said the Punjab government had been making all out efforts to eliminate the role of middleman, but the elected representatives were thinking otherwise.

Last year, the Jaranwala growers had been exploited by the same hands in getting fertilisers. Around 300 farmers, including women, held a demonstration in Awagat area on Faisalabad Road on Dec 12, 2008, to protest black-marketing of fertilisers and they threw traffic out of gear for nearly two hours. The police later made the protesters lift the road blockade and six people were injured in the baton-charge.

The protesters were of the view that black-marketing was being carried out in connivance with MNA Wasir as fertilisers bags were being sold to only those farmers who were recommended by him in writing.

The protesters alleged that one of the distributors had sold 300 bags in bulk to a single person on the recommendation of the MNA. Wasir, however, had refuted the allegations, saying he had nothing to do with the black-marketing of fertilizers.

Following complaints of nepotism in distribution of gunny bags, sources said, Revenue EDO Malik Mohammad Aslam paid a surprise visit to the centre and found the complaints true. He reportedly grilled the supervisory committee members for issuance of huge quantity of bags to only a few people. The committee members, according to sources, failed to satisfy the EDO.

Sources said the EDO had immediately cancelled the notification of the supervisory committee and submitted a report to the district coordination officer (DCO) for suspension of assistant food controller (AFC) and two food inspectors from service. They said the district government had been arranging additional bags for this centre.

They said after the mess that arose at the Jaranwala centre, the DCO and other district government officers had started visiting other procurement centres on regular basis.

Sources said that AFC had nothing to do with gunny bags supply to the people recommended by the parliamentarians as he had issued bags following the instructions of the supervisory committee members.

Talking to Dawn, the EDO said that a new supervisory committee was being formed and the local Revenue DDO, instead of the AFC, would head the committee to ensure issuance of bags to maximum number of growers transparently.

He said that farmers to whom bags had been issued were being pressed to supply wheat to the centre quickly so that middleman could not exploit other farmers.

He said that a number of farmers had not yet contacted the centre for getting bags, however, nearly 90,000 out of 110,000 bags had been issued within four days from Jaranwala centre.

The EDO was, however, not sure that how many farmers had been affected by the committee`s what appeared to be a non-transparent distribution. He said that majority of the growers were yet to avail the facility.

He said that a farmer could get maximum 200 bags once and could avail the opportunity again after depositing the previous lot. The farmer had to pay Rs86 per bag, he added.