By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: Stressing on the need to streamline the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS), Member of Opposition, James K Sangma (NPP) on Thursday expressed concern over the lack of checks and measures adopted by the Government to ensure a better and effective delivering mechanism.
Moving the motion on the poor functioning of the Food and Civil Supplies department with reference to the ineffective delivery mechanisms, Sangma said that there are many loopholes in the delivering mechanism.
“The mechanism is faulty due to the lack of certain checks and measures required to ensure a better distribution of food grains and other essential commodities through the fair price shop dealers,” Sangma said.
Informing the House that in Meghalaya, the TPDS operates through 4,084 fair price shops, the NPP leader stressed on the need to avoid discrepancies in identifying the number of BPL families in the State.
Sangma pointed out that according to the government, there are over 2 lakh BPL families in the State while the figure issued by the Planning Commission shows that around over 80,000 fa,ilies in the State are BPL.
“This is a big problem plaguing the
proper implementation of the TPDS and this is due to the fact that a correct and accurate figure of the number of BPL families could not be obtained as there are discrepancies in the figure given by the State Government and the Planning Commission,” Sangma said while hoping that with the new survey underway, the real picture would come to fore.
Sangma also raised the issue of issuance of bogus ration cards while citing the 2006 incident where over 15,202 fraudulent cards were detected in Shillong.
“What action has been taken by the government in this regard,” Sangma questioned while pointing out that the incident should be treated as a learning experience and corrective measures should be adopted to check such anomalies.
He also lambasted the government for relying on public complaints to act upon such incidences. “Instead of waiting for a complaint, why does the government not start conducting frequent checks on the ration cards,” he stated.
The NPP leader also highlighted some of the lacunas in the lifting of food grains and other essential commodities.
He informed that in 2006-07, the lifting of rice amounted to over 6023 metric tons and the same came down to 341 metric tons in 2009-10. “Even though, there was a drop in the malpractice, yet the government should ensure that lifting is nipped in the bud,” he added.
Meanwhile, drawing the attention of the House to various anomalies in the distribution system, Sangma said that there was a violation of the mandate laid by the Commissioner of the Supreme Court in the 6th Report which stated that under no circumstances should the price of rice distributed to the BPL and AAY be more than the issued price, which is Rs 6.15 and Rs 3 respectively, and not more than 35 kgs of the total amount of rice should be distributed per card every month.
“However, turning to the ground reality, I can tell that surely the rice under BPL and AAY were not provided as per the given rate and when trying to reason with the fair price shops dealers, the reply received was a raise in the actual price due to transportation cost,” the NPP leader said.
He pointed out that anomalies were also unearthed in the distribution 35 kgs of rice per card every month. “Some beneficiaries often get 20 kgs while some end up with 5-10 kgs a month,” he said.
“This points to a big racket and indicates that rice is being diverted to the black market or sold in the open market,” he said while seeking action from the government in this regard.
He also raised the issue of distribution of alleged sub-standard quality of food grains and other essential commodities suspecting that there is some kind of mischief going on within the Food and Civil Supplies department which needs immediate redressal.
