Food, Public Distribution and Civil Supplies Minister Saryu Roy has rejected claims made by the  Opposition leaders about death of Santoshi Kumari in Simdega last month and Baidyanath Das in Dhanbad this month as hunger deaths.

However, he also pointed towards other side of the Government, saying that “Governments never confess hunger deaths as it (confession) also exposes Government’s failure of its responsibilities”.

Addressing some 500 Public Distribution System (PDS) dealers and vigilance committee members from all 24 districts of the State at RIMS Auditorium on Monday, Roy made an appeal to all 23,070 dealers in the State to work in sync with Government plans to eradicate hunger from the State. He did acknowledge issues raised by dealers in the meeting regarding difficulties with e-PoS machines and others and said that the Government was all committed to wipe out such issues as soon as possible.

“Government is ready to make every positive change in system within its limitations. We will have to understand that we are moving a step further from making food-grain available to making nutrition-carrying food available to everyone. Both the country and our State have been lagging behind others on nutrition index and we will have to get rid of it soon as it also forces Governments to invest huge in healthcare sector afterwards. And then, I have repeatedly said on occasions that technology is only our servant and not the master. So, I will ask to cooperate with it until you get friendly with and start loving it,” said Roy to dealers.

PDS dealers, on the other hand, came up with whole lot of issues with e-PoS machines, mainly network and maintenance problems, and their commission. More than half of PDS dealers present there in the meeting cried over low commission to them against food-grain distribution to beneficiaries which in most of the cases didn’t exceed Rs 6,000 across the State. Dealers from Godda, Sahibganj, Jamtara, Ramgarh, Bokaro, Dhanbad and Dumka prominently came up with idea of dealers’ commission to be raised to at least Rs 18,000 a month, matching to the minimum monthly wage to any Central Government employee.

Dealers also pointed out issues with Aadhaar seeding and said that Pragya Kendras were completely waste of time in rural areas where no daily wage worker earning meagerly Rs 50-100 everyday could afford to waste weeks only for Aadhaar card. They demanded the government to come down to villages and make Aadhaar Card of the poor.

Department Secretary Vinay Kumar Choubey said on the occasion that though there was not much space for reconsideration over dealer’s commission as it was already raised over 500 percent in last three years. “However, we are ready to reconsider it to see whether there is slightest chance of increasing it. We are also going to start selling non-PDS items in selected 100 PDS stores on pilot basis in urban and semi-urban areas which will increase their commission,” said Choubey where other officials from the department were also present.

Notably, some of the recent deaths labeled as hunger deaths in the State had questioned the Government and the department after which the department had reversed the Chief Secretary’s order of denying food-grain to anyone having no Aadhaar seeded with their Ration Cards. Roy repeated on Monday that ration can’t be denied to anyone in any case and the Government would meanwhile continue process of Aadhaar seeding of rest of the beneficiaries as it was the only way forward.