Minister for Food and Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs K. Gopalaiah has directed the officials not to cancel any ration cards during the lockdown period and during the prevalence of COVID-19 pandemic even if it was found that the beneficiaries were ineligible.
Chairing a review meeting of officials in Haveri on Wednesday, the Minister said that no beneficiaries should be denied foodgrains during this period of crisis. He also asked the officials to take steps to cancel licence of PDS shops in case of licence holders collecting service charges from beneficiaries or were found cheating them in weights and measures.
Clarifying that the government itself was giving service charges to PDS licence holders, Mr. Gopalaiah said that if it was found that any extra money was being collected from beneficiaries, action should taken immediately. The Minister directed the officials to constitute around 10-15 teams comprising officials of different departments to keep an eye on PDS shops.
The Minister said that as there were no COVID-19 cases in Haveri district, steps should be taken to dispose of applications for BPL and APL cards. He said that he would take up the issue of simultaneous opening of all PDS shops in the State in May for distribution of foodgrains, with Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa. A decision would be taken on Thursday.
On the plea by elected representatives about procurement of maize under minimum support price (MSP) scheme, he said that the Centre had permitted procurement of paddy, ragi and jowar under the scheme. “We will again write to the Centre on procuring maize under the scheme,” he said.
Deputy Director of Food and Civil Supplies Vinod Kumar Heggalagi briefed the meeting about food distribution and other initiatives taken by the department.
Deputy Commissioner of Haveri Krishna Bajpai, MLAs C.M. Udasi, Nehru Olekar and others were present.
Visit
Subsequently, the Minister visited KSFC warehouses in Haveri and checked stock and quality of foodgrains. Mr. Gopalaiah asked the Deputy Commissioner to identify five acres of land for construction of a warehouse for storage of foodgrains distributed under Public Distribution System.
