Minister for Civil Supplies P. Pulla Rao has warned ration dealers of action if they fail to supply essential commodities in accordance with the norms.
The Minister inspected various ration depots along with Director of Civil Supplies Ravi Babu, Assistant Commissioner of Legal Metrology P. Sudhakar, and Civil Supply officials on Wednesday.
He first visited the shop no. 171 at Ramnagar at 10 a.m. and noticed that the dealer P. Ananda Rao had opened the shop just then. He expressed displeasure at the improper maintenance of records. He found that there were discrepancies in the actual stock supplied and that mentioned in the records.
Later, the Minister went to shop no. 179 and found that it was closed. The dealer J. Appalanarasamma opened the shop at 10.45 a.m. He found discrepancies in supply and wondered whether the stocks were being actually supplied to cardholders at all. He found fault with the District Supply Officer and the Assistant Supply Officer for the sorry state of affairs and said had the officials conducted inspections regularly it would not have been so. He said the ration shops should be kept open from 8 a.m. to 12 noon and again from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Later, Mr. Pulla Rao went to shop no. 173 and found the shop closed.
He called up the dealer K. Trinadha Rao on his phone and the latter replied that he was on his way. The infuriated Minister got the doors of the shop opened and inspected the stocks. He directed the officials concerned to initiate action against such dealers.
He went to the Railway Station and inspected the food stalls and the eatables, the price lists and catalogues.
He directed the Legal Metrology officials to book cases against the concerned contractors and to terminate their contracts, if they repeated their mistake a second time.
He also visited the food court at CMR Central and noticed that the prices were jacked up and expressed his ire. He called upon consumers to be aware and pull up the dealers, if they find any discrepancies in the prices or quality of food.
