In protest against the corrupt practices that are reportedly rampant at the regional office of textile commissioner in Amritsar, industrialists in Ludhiana gheraoed some of the visiting textile ministry officials, who were in the city to clear the air on the recent changes in the ministry’s subsidy scheme, and expressed their dissent.
The industrialists were also irked by the officials’ failure to take any action against this malpractice and slammed the ministry for the inordinate delay in clearing the subsidy files of several textile industrialists from Ludhiana. Some of them have been waiting for the clearance for over two years now.
Holding the staff of Amritsar commissioner office responsible for deliberately holding the files for months, Knitwear Club Chairman Vinod Thapar said, “Businessmen have to go through a lot of harassment to get their subsidies processed from the Amritsar office. There are so many cases in which the files that were sent for claims within the stipulated time have not been forwarded by the staff. As a result, we are unable to receive our subsidy even after two years of submitting our documents.”
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Thapar revealed that the officers often ask businessmen to visit Amritsar to submit their documents, even though there is no such rule and that these documents can be submitted online as well.
Expressing his anger over the issue, Bhushan Abbi, President, Knit and Fab Cluster, said, “The Amritsar office of the department has become a den for corrupt officers. A businessman’s file, even if it is for a petty work, does not move an inch if they don’t oblige the undue demands of the staff. We want an inquiry against the entire staff posted here for the past five years. Guilty officers should be suspended and made to pay interest to industrialists whose subsidies have been kept pending deliberately.”
It was indeed an embarrassing moment for the officials.
However, Rajinder Kumar, Deputy Director of the regional office of the textile commissioner, gave a patient hearing to the textile industrialists’ grievances, and assured them that not only will he look into the matter, but also make sure that the guilty were punished.
