A team of officials raided a retail supermarket, seized 15 quintals of toor dal, and slapped a case against it here on Monday.
The team of officials comprised Udupi tahsildar T.J. Guruprasad, deputy director, Department of Food and Civil Supplies, S. Yogishwar, and food inspector Vinay of the department.
Mr. Yogishwar told The Hindu that the team found that the store had 50 kg of toor dal packed in 30 bags, which totalled to 15 quintals. The supermarket did not have a licence to store the dal. “Hence, we have seized the bags. A case had been registered under Section 3 of Essential Commodities Act,” he said.
Mr. Guruprasad said that the store had been told to produce the order or licence for holding the stock in the next 24 hours.
The 15 quintals of toor dal had been sealed.
“We will be taking stringent action against illegal hoarding of pulses in the taluk. We will carry out more such inspections,” he said.
Meanwhile, during raids conducted in Mangaluru on three wholesale stockists on Monday, officials did not find any hoarding of toor dal by the traders, said an official release here.
The raids were conducted in Bunder area by officials from the Food and Civil Supplies Department. Last week, officials had raided five wholesale godowns.
Licence required
As per the rules, wholesale traders require licences to store pulses and grains beyond 500 quintals, while they cannot store beyond 2,000 quintals even with the licence, the release said.
Deputy Commissioner A.B. Ibrahim had directed the officials to conduct the raids to check hoarding of toor dal, the release added.
