Food scams claim two ministers in Orissa in a decade

Bhubaneswar, Feb 5 (PTI) Exactly a decade after thesacking of a minister from Naveen Patnaik government in Orissaover alleged irregularities in supply of food items to schoolsand anganwadi centres, another minister of Women and ChildDevelopment Department quit the post today.

Pramila Mallick was the second Women and ChildDevelopment Minister in the state after Kamala Das to havefaced the music for supply of substandard quality food items.

While Das was sacked from the ministry by Patnaik overthe fortified salt scam in 2001, Mallick had to resign fromthe post in the wake of a multi-crore dal scam.

Das was involved in a Rs 2-crore salt scam and theamount involved in the dal scam over which Mallick had to stepdown was to the tune of Rs 700 crore.

Das had been convicted by a Special Vigilance Courtfor entering into a criminal conspiracy with a private saltsupplying firm. She was accused of obtaining pecuniary benefitby illegal and corrupt means using her official position.

Investigation by the state''s anti-corruption VigilanceDepartment had meanwhile, detected supply of substandardpulses to schools and anganwadi centres under MDM and SNP.

WCD set up in 1995, was the nodal agency to supplydal, salt, rice and condiments to grass root level formid-day-meal (MDM), supplementary nutrition programme (SNP)and emergency feeding programme (EFP).