By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: The Food Corporation of India (FCI) on Wednesday stated that neither the FCI Shillong nor their carriage contractors were responsible for the poor packing of sugar or for carrying them in unclean rail wagons by the Indian Railways.
Referring to the news item on the adulterated sugar seized by East Garo Hills district administration, FCI Shillong in a statement issued here on Wednesday said that before allowing the quality check by FCI in its depot, intercepting the stock in road and blaming the FCI Shillong for bad quality is not fair.
FCI informed that the sugar for Meghalaya or other North Eastern States is usually booked from sugar mills located in Maharashtra/Karnataka and the transportation of sugar bags are done from the sugar mills to NE State in wagons by the Indian railway up to railhead at Changsari in Guwahati.
“The packing of the levy sugar in polythene bags are done by the sugar mills. Often, the polythene bags used by the mills for packing sugar are of very poor quality, as a result of which they get burst or damaged inside the wagons during transportation”, the letter stated adding that the FCI Shillong has no control over the mills or packing materials used by the sugar mills.
Putting the blame on the Indian Railways, FCI stated that the present case is one such instance where the poor packing of the sugars by the mills has resulted in damage of bags during the transport in wagons and the sugar got dirty as the floor of the Indian Railways were not clean.
FCI also stated that whenever such quality is detected in FCI Shillong or elsewhere, matters are reported to its higher authority by the local FCI for corrective steps. “There are established procedures to deal with such cases in FCI and the higher authority take serious note of such report from the district or regional FCI Offices”, the letter added.
