Big food scam surfaced as garlic of Rs160m stoles from public warehouse

The biggest scam of the food sector in Pakistan has been surfaced as thieves have stolen public garlic worth Rs160 million from the warehouse.

According to the 24News HD TV channel, the valuable public garlic of around 40,000 kilograms was stored at the warehouse of the National Agriculture Research Centre (NARC).

The market price of such garlic was considered around Rs4,000 per kilogram and the total amount of such stolen garlic was counted as approximately equal to the worth of Rs160 million.

The sources said that the garlic was stored by the orders of the NARC chairman in the warehouse and the officials had started efforts to hide the facts.

For this purpose, the sources said that the officials had not informed the police about the theft of garlic but started inter-department inquiry showing stealing of the 16 bags of garlic only.

According to the records, the new variety of the garlic, G-I, was cultivated at the five acres piece of land in the NARC fields, the sources said adding that now the centre has only the garlic seed with the weight of 5,000 kilograms.

The sources said that the departmental inquiry team comprising of the four officials had failed to trace out the culprits.

Reporter: Saghir Chaudhry