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Journalism of Courage
CHANDIGARH, Sept 29: The vociferous protest by the Markfed Employees Union notwithstanding, Punjab Cooperation Minister Ranjit Singh Brahampura and a few other officials are all set to go ahead with their foreign trip scheduled to start from October 1.
The staff union members had staged a dharna yesterday to protest the proposed visit. The union members had described the proposed visit as a "picnic" and "unnecessary wastage of funds", and had demanded its cancellation. However, the Markfed board of directors reportedly met yesterday and approved a sum of Rs 27 lakh for the visit.
Union president Ranjit Goyal said: "It is unfortunate that while the officials have given no heed to their long-pending `genuine’ demands, they are hell-bent on wasting money by going abroad. “And then the government talks of financial constraints! We’ll not let the matter end here." he added.
Besides Brahampura, others who are going on a 14-day tour to USA, Holland and UK includes his "relative" Ravinder Singh, Markfed chairman Jagdish Singh Walia, financial commissioner (Cooperation) K.S. Janjua and chief manager (Projects and Engineering) S.S. Shergill. None of these could be contacted as they had reportedly left for Delhi.Sources point out that originally Markfed Managing Director G.S. Sandhu was also a part of the team but his name was not approved by the government.
A senior official said the visit was in connection with setting up of a potato processing plant, a cattle-feed unit, bulk handling of food grains and refining of rice bran oil to edible grade.
