The Delhi Rozi Roti Adhikhar Abhiyaan (DRRAA) on Wednesday wrote to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal expressing concerns over the proposed policy of home delivery of ration.
The DRRAA said that there was a lack of transparency regarding the policy and an absence of a monitoring mechanism would increase the chances of corruption and extortion.
Stating that the proposal of home delivery of ration was being pushed through without public consultation, the DRRAA, in its letter to the CM, said that people were informed of the proposal through text messages.
The letter also stated that when the DRRAA volunteers approached government officials, they were unable to respond to queries pertaining to the proposal.
“Expecting people to take a decision in such a scenario where no relevant details of the proposed policy are available in the public domain is meaningless. It is pertinent to point out that given the fact that many people, especially those with meagre economic means often do not have a working mobile phone connection... it is likely that many of the nearly 18 lakh households, who have ration cards, may not have even received the SMS intimation,” the letter read.
The DRRAA also stated that an absence of monitoring mechanisms would increase the scope of corruption.
“In the current scenario, where there is poor oversight and monitoring of the existing 2,000 ration shops in Delhi, it is unclear how the administration will carry out oversight of a large number of delivery persons delivering to lakhs of homes. Given these issues, we call upon the Delhi government to immediately put on hold its proposal for home delivery of ration,” the DRRAA said in its letter to Mr. Kejriwal.
It also urged the State government to not make any changes to the delivery mechanism of foodgrains in a “hasty and non-transparent” manner.
