Residents staged a demonstration outside the Department of Food and Civil Supplies office here on Monday, alleging kerosene was not being supplied to BPL card holders.
The protesters, mainly BPL cardholders and autorickshaw drivers, said they had not been supplied kerosene at the Public Distribution System (PDS) shops in July. They said they had obtained kerosene from PDS shops the previous month.
Raising slogans against officials of the Department of Food and Civil Supplies, they urged the government to take remedial measures.
Food and Civil Supplies assistant director Prabhakar Valagad clarified the Department had not stopped supplying kerosene to all card holders. “Only BPL card holders having LPG cylinder connections have been denied supplies,” he said.
“Cross verification of LPG connections with the data of BPL card holders available revealed that several had undeclared LPG cylinder connections. This information has been put on the Department’s official website,” he said.
To a query, he clarified that while the Department had received information on the supply of 30 kg of food grains to BPL card holders and accordingly rice was being sold to them at Re. 1 per kg. “However there is no direction from the government on the supply of wheat to BPL card holders and so we are not giving them any wheat,” he said.
