The BSF on Wednesday came out with fresh guidelines for maintaining high quality of food for its personnel as the Union Home Ministry directed it to file a complete report on allegations of substandard food made by a soldier posted along the LoC.
BSF Director-General K.K. Sharma on Wednesday met Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and submitted a second interim report on the allegations made by Tej Bahadur Yadav on a video that was uploaded on social networking sites.
The BSF chief avoided queries after the meeting but the paramilitary force came out with a statement in the evening, announcing six measures for providing quality food to its jawans posted along the border.
“Issues related to diet of jawans, issues of ration purchase procedures and pilferages thereof are the issues of prime concern for any organisation. The BSF has taken a holistic view of the situation and follow-up process has been swung into action (sic),” the statement said and listed an audit of the system by a team of senior commanding officers.
Among other steps taken by the BSF were chalking out shortcomings of the present process, suggesting procedural and systematic improvements, keeping a vigil of double checks, enhancing formal and informal interactions with jawans and introduciing systemic innovations to ensure cashless transactions in all messes.
In the second interim report, the BSF stated that the ‘daal’ shown in the jawan’s video was uncanned from tinned food ration and the ‘parantha’ was cooked in the unit mess as per procedures followed at high-altitude locations.
After the issue went viral on social media, Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju said the government had sent “experts and dietitians to each and every post of the border to ensure that the food quality of the jawans must be as per the norms.”
A final report in this regard is expected to be submitted by the BSF on Thursday.
