Karnataka - Mangalore   

Ration card issue to be resolved in 100 days

MANGALORE: People will be able to register their grievances, related to Department of Food and Civil Supplies, through helplines to be fixed at the offices of the department across the State in the next 10 days. Deputy Commissioners and deputy directors of the department will be in charge of addressing the grievances, Minister for Food and Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs H. Halappa has said. One helpline has already been opened at Bangalore.

Addressing presspersons after a review meeting with the department officials here on Tuesday, Mr. Halappa said these helplines would function from 8 a.m. up to 8 p.m. and would be located at the office of the deputy director, Mr. Halappa said and added that the department would announce the numbers of these helplines through advertisements in newspapers.

Mr. Halappa said the grievances registered would be passed on to the authorities who would attend to them as quickly as possible. Asked if the existing staff crunch in the department would allow for effective functioning of this facility, he said steps would be taken to increase the staff adequately.

However, he admitted that there was a freeze on recruitment owing to economic austerity.

On the issue of providing ration cards to various sections of society, Mr. Halappa said Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa had given him 100 days to sort it out.

The department had received complaints about above poverty line families having been issued with below poverty line (BPL) cards and vice versa.

The authorities would launch a drive to set it right, he said. Calling upon the elected representatives to help the officials in this regard, Mr. Halappa said that the officials were under pressure from elected representatives to include the names of their supporters in the BPL list.

“People should voluntarily surrender wrong cards. Elected representatives must take the lead in this regard,” he said.

Stating that fair price depots would be asked to display the lists of APL and BPL families in their respective areas, he said that the ration cards would no longer be deemed an essential document for address proof. Its use would be confined to securing items in fair price depots, he said.

The department had distributed four lakh BPL cards as against 12 lakh applications. Steps would be taken to provide cards to others at the earliest, he said.

To a question on oil companies forcing consumers to buy branded fuel, the Minister said that the State-level coordinator for oil companies had promised to set it right. Deputy Commissioners had been instructed to monitor this development at their level and coordinate with the officials, the Minister said.

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