By Pervez Bari, TwoCircles.net
Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan undertook a surprise check of Bhopal-based godown of Food Corporation of India, (FCI). He inspected stocks of wheat and rice.
According to an official Press release Chouhan reportedly expressed displeasure at the bad quality of imported red wheat and said that the Centre is supplying bad quality imported red wheat at exorbitant rates. Madhya Pradesh Government would write a letter to the Union Government in this connection and he would himself meet concerning Union ministers and urge them not to send wheat of bad quality to Madhya Pradesh. The Union Government would be told to send only good quality wheat to the state. Purchase of bad quality wheat at high rates smacks of a big scam, it was alleged.
Chouhan went inside the godown and inspected wheat of various qualities stored there. He said that lakhs of tonnes of wheat has been allotted to Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh while Madhya Pradesh has been allotted only 66 tonnes of foodgrains. This is step-motherly behaviour with Madhya Pradesh. Demand would be raised with the Union Government to raise the APL and BPL quota of Madhya Pradesh. The Central Government would be told to send those that quality of wheat which is fit for human consumption. The people of Madhya Pradesh would launch an agitation against supply of bad quality red imported wheat.
He said that the consignments of red important wheat also contain a lot of dirt and dust. It is also not fit for human consumption. The imported wheat has been purchased from foreign countries at the rate of Rs 14 per kg while the rate of Indian wheat is only Rs 8.50 per kg. He would take the sample of this bad quality wheat and show it to Union minister when he meets them. Further action would be taken by the state government if the situation does not improve even after that.
Later, the Chief Minister also visited Mamata Women’s Primary Cooperative Consumer Committee Shiv Nagar and Ekta Women’s Cooperative Consumer Store Damkhera. The Chief Minister went through the stock register, food grain distribution register very minutely and apprised himself of the situation of kerosene distribution. The Chief Minister inspected APL and BPL registers separately.
Chouhan also sought information and remarks by the people who had gathered the spot. The Chief Minister instructed the Bhopal collector to probe why timely inspections of the both the store were not undertaken and constant monitoring was not done. He asked the collector to seek explanation from the concerning food officials. Later, he said that for irregularities in people’s problems and programmes big officers would be held responsible instead of lower grade employees.
The Chief Minister also instructed Bhopal collector to put up a report after inspecting last six months records, registers of stock, distribution and other documents of all the ration shops, the release added. ([email protected])