The Kerala State Cooperative Consumers Federation (Consumerfed) will buy rice from West Bengal and sell it through its outlets in the State at affordable rates from March 10 to check the rising prices of rice.
Announcing this in the Assembly while replying to questions on Tuesday, Minister for Cooperation and Tourism Kadakampally Surendran said officials of Consumerfed were already in West Bengal to work out the agreement with suppliers of rice as the effort to buy rice from Karnataka had failed. The price of rice in adjoining States had also gone up, Mr. Surendran said.
A consortium of 26 cooperatives had been formed and a seed capital of ₹100 crore provided to sell rice at affordable rates. The Minister said the bad reputation of Consumerfed on account of the delay in settling the bill of rice suppliers from other States during the previous United Democratic Front (UDF) regime was a major hurdle in procuring rice. “We have given ₹52 crore already to the suppliers and arrears of ₹157 crore is still pending,” he added.
The Minister said the Consumerfed that has suffered a loss of ₹447 crore had been able to achieve an operating profit of ₹23.48 crore through a series of administrative measures and financial discipline. Auditing had not taken place after 2011 and vouchers and agreements were missing, he said, adding that stern steps would be taken against the guilty and to check corruption.
GST registration
Minister for Finance T.M. Thomas Isaac said 1,52,474 of the 2,55,036 traders who received provisional ID in the State had completed the GSTN registration as on February 21.
Check-posts of the Commercial Tax Department would cease to exist in the State once the GST was rolled out. The bill would have to be used for all inter-State sales and it could be cross-checked through a computerised system. To check the misuse of the facility, the Finance Minister said all roads and by-lanes in Valayar would be put under camera surveillance on an experimental basis.
