Owais Gul:
Srinagar: The employees association from Food and Supplies department here on Thursday appealed people not to buy the ‘substandard ration’ from anywhere, stating that the substandard ration was being distributed among the people here at ration depots.
President of Food and Supplies Employees Association Kashmir, Riyaz Ahmad Sofi while addressing a presser here at head office said that the substandard ration was kept at one of the Private Entrepreneurs Godown (PEG) in Budgam.
He said that ration was bought by FCI @Rs 01per kg while it is being old here at the cost of Rs 15 per kg.
Earlier, a video clip was shot on Tuesday at Srinagar godown of FCI, in which an FCI officer is refusing to allow a team of Food department for segregating the rice which they found substandard and not fit for the human consumption. The officer can be seen vehemently denying the team permission inside the godown and asks them to lift the 35 trucks without segregation.
The authorities at FCI have categorically denied permission to the Food department officials in the video the officials of the food department can be heard saying that the quality of the rice was not good therefore they would like to segregate it before lifting the supply. The officer of the FCI however, denies permission saying, they cannot do that and there were clear directions that nobody can segregate the rice.
The officer has also admitted that they are packing the left over rice also in bags and then stitch them themselves. Ironically the FCI has later gone ahead and transported the same sub-standard supply to the stores.
The Consumer and food supplies department is understood to have raised a strong objection of the matter.
However, Director of Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution (CA&PD) Mohammad Qasim Wani refuted the allegations, saying that he has already directed Deputy Director CA&PD to ensure standard ration is distributed among the people.
He said that any bag with substandard ration will be rejected and send back.
Regarding ration at PEG, he said the ration was earlier rejected and now has been kept aside. Asked about delay in returning the rejected ration, Wani said that it is up to the Food Corporation of India (FCI) to take it back.