Rs 4.65-cr fine slapped on PDS shopowners

The Panchmahals District Supply Office (DSO) has slapped a whopping fine of Rs 4.65 crore on 10 Fair Price Shop (FPS) owners after investigations revealed that 1.10 lakh fake bar-coded ration cards were used to procure essential commodities under the public distribution system.

This comes a week after Panchmahals District Collector Milind Torwane asked the Godhra Municipality and the District Supply Office to recover the amount from them.

DSO officials said that five of the 10 shopowners,against whom police complaints have been filed,are part of a same family. The DSO,Godhra Municipality and Lunawada taluka officials have been asked to submit a report on their properties also.

The five are Rajendra Khemchand Luhana,Rajendra Ghanshyam Luhana,Jethanand Khemchand Luhana,Rohit Sundarlal Luhana and Kamlesh Dhanraj Manglani. ENS