SHILLONG: The State legal metrology department has been hamstrung by paucity of fund and manpower.
Talking to newsmen here in the city on Tuesday, Controller of the Legal Metrology, Israel Ingty told newsmen here on Tuesday that the department received around Rs 7 crores as its budgetary allocation and most of the amount is spent on paying salaries to its employees.
Though the Central Government under the 11th and 12th Plan had allotted Rs 6 crore to the department, the amount was utilised for the construction of laboratories.
Ingty pointed out that the department had small teams in every district in the form of one Inspector and one manual assistant which is looking after the 19 categories of traders in the state.
Stressing that the department needs more manpower, the official also claimed that the gas agencies in the city were complying with the directive and the LPG cylinders were being weighed during the home delivery.
“If there is any complaint, people can contact us,” he said. However, the department till date does not have a helpline number and has a complaint box in the Meghalaya portal where people can lodge complaint. People can also lodge complaints directly to the Controller.
The department verifies 180 weighbridges in the state including the weighbridges of the cement companies, transport industries and even private weigh bridges which are owned by the mining community.
Ingty also informed that the department in the year 2011-2016 carried out 5961 surprise inspections in which 49517 traders were penalized and a fine of Rs 1492100 was realized.
He said that the offenders were imposed a fine of Rs 5000 at the first instance followed by Rs 12000 in the second instances and were sent to imprisonment on the third occasion.
According to Ingty, the Union Government recently constituted a special task force comprising of officers from the department, DC (Supply) and representatives of the oil companies to inspect all the 192 petrol pumps in the state. “We have found that everything is alright with the petrol pumps and submitted the report to the Union Government,” he said.