The Consumer Federation Suppliers’ Association has alleged that the standoff between Minister for Cooperation C.N. Balakrishnan and Managing Director of the apex consumers’ cooperative Tomin J. Thachankari is delaying payments due to them to the tune of Rs.387 crore.
The Association represents around 120 supply contractors with the Kerala State Cooperative Consumers’ Federation. The suppliers have refused to take part in fresh tenders and warned on Saturday that they would refrain from participation until the dues were paid.
These dues have been pending for about three years. The suppliers also claimed that suppliers from Andhra Pradesh, who were part of their fraternity, had threatened to stop rice supplies to Kerala unless the arrears were paid.
Issue taken up
The issue had been taken up at the inter-governmental level too, said a contractor at a press conference here on Saturday.
Though the Department of Cooperation has issued an order on April 23 on government guarantee for a sum of Rs.150 crore loan to Consumerfed nothing has been done to avail the loan, the contractors said. The order said that Rs.100 crore of the loan should be used for part-payment of the arrears and Rs.50 crore for running Consumerfed business.
The suppliers said that many of them were in serious financial trouble and faced possible revenue recovery procedures on loans they availed for their businesses.
The suppliers plan to stage a dharna in front of the headquarters of Consumerfed at Gandhi Nagar here on June 16.
If the dharna did not produce the desired result, the suppliers would take out a march to the house of the Minister, they said.
The office-bearers of the Association had petitioned the Chief Minister, Minister for Home and the KPCC president, they said.
With supply contractors refusing to take part in tenders, most of Consumerfed outlets are starved of fresh supplies.
The situation can lead to a price spiral as Consumerfed has been designed to intervene in the market during festival season like Onam, warned the supply contractors.
Association refuses to take part in tenders
Contractors plan dharna in Kochi on Tuesday
