Officials of the Food and Civil Supplies Department conducted simultaneous raids on retail stores here and seized huge quantity of pulses and edible oil stocked illegally.
Four teams of the department conducted raids on retail stores such as Big Bazaar, Reliance, Om Supermarket, More, and Royal World, checked the stock and books of accounts before seizing the pulses and oil stock and booking cases.
K. Rameshwarappa, Senior Deputy Director of the Food and Civil Supplies Department, under whose supervision, the raids were conducted, told The Hindu that none of the big retail stores had maintained the books of accounts properly and they had not obtained licence from the authorities to sell foodgrains. They had not displayed the price of foodgrains such as pulses, he said, and added that all the shops were selling pulses at an exorbitant price.
‘Rules violated’
Under the Karnataka Essential Commodities Order of 1981, retailers and wholesale dealers must posses licence to sell foodgrains and they should display the price list and the stock available. These big retail stores had violated these rules, Mr. Rameshwarappa said.
He said the raids were conducted in the wake of steep rise in the price of pulses such as toor dal, moong dal, urad dal, and chana dal, and the department had learnt that many traders and big retail stores had stocked huge quantity of pulses. The officials seized at least 15 quintals of pulses stored illegally. Mr. Rameshwarappa said the exact quantity to the seized pulses would be known after the books of accounts, bills and invoices were examined.
A few days ago, the department seized pulses worth of Rs. 7 crore from various shops at Bandipalya here and booked cases against the shopowners.
Officials seized at least 15 quintals of pulses stored illegally
