Delhi Food and Supplies Minister Imran Hussain has ordered that his Department’s inspectors will again be responsible for opening the sale of ration items in the national Capital, a procedure abolished by the Delhi Government on November 19, 2014, citing corruption in the existing system.
Following the decision there are fears that the Inspector Raj will be back.
A circular to this effect issued by Assistant Commissioner Girish Pandey said, “Thus the system of opening of sale by food and supplies inspector is hereby restarted on experimental basis initially for three months only. Therefore, all the Assistant Commissioner’s are hereby directed to ensure the opening of sale of specified food article through food and supplies inspector as per pervious practice and will make the entry of opening of sale in the inspection books accordingly for three months only which will be reviewed thereafter.”
Top sources told The Pioneer that during a weekly review meeting of the Food and Supplies Department, it was discussed that due to abolition of opening of sale through inspectors, lack of coordination between Department and ration shop owners was being observed as a result of which complaints against the shop owners in the Public Grievance Management System portal and on other helpline numbers were constantly increasing.
Most of complaints were reportedly about not opening of shops and issuing of specified food articles to the beneficiaries from the first day of the month.
There are 2,530 fair price ration shops which provide subsidised commodities to 19.54 lakh families in the city. That means, about 72.77 lakh people are getting benefit under the Food Security Act.
Sources said many officials at the meeting were of the view that possibility of diversion of specified food articles has increased due to several reasons as stock taking was not witnessed by inspectors on a regular basis. Accordingly, it was decided to abolish the system of not opening of sale by the food and supplies inspectors from May, 2016.