Even as the government has issued fresh warnings to fair price shop dealers in the State, majority of them have made up their mind not to yield and give up strike.
By Friday evening, only 2,000 dealers have paid for delivery of commodities through demand drafts, which is but a fraction of the total number of dealers. The deadline for the payment ends on Saturday, December 2.
On Friday, Civil Supplies Commissioner C.V. Anand issued orders asking the district collectors to appoint new dealers to fill up the vacant positions.
Identifying dealers
He has also asked them to identify and collect the data of the dealers participating in the strike, and of the dealers who have paid the DDs but are not distributing the commodities to people.
Civil Supplies Department is in the process of listing out the dealers who are participating in the strike and also initiated district level officials to collect their data, a press communiqué informed. After December 2, defaulting dealers would be suspended and new dealers appointed, it said.
Battula Ramesh Babu, president of the Telangana State Ration Dealers Welfare Association, said close to 70 % of the 18,000 dealers across the State are determined to continue the strike which is on since November 25.
Driven to suicide
“Let them remove us and appoint new dealers. We will continue the strike till the government pays heed. Since August, four ration dealers have committed suicide under debt burden. We are incurring a monthly loss of ₹10,000-12,000 in this business,” he said.
The ration dealers have been agitating for monthly honorarium and other perks for over a year now, complaining that the commission on ration commodities has dropped drastically, and it was not enough to maintain the shops and pay for the clerical staff.
Officials, however, attribute the strike to the tightening of the delivery systems through introduction of e-POS systems in the shops.
