launched with much fanfare by the Hemant Soren Government, the Sona-Sobran Dhoti-Saree-lungi Scheme has started gathering dirt like many others. After passing the initial hiccups during the tender process, now quality of the fabrics supplied is gathering attention.
Just within a few months of having been launched in August last year — barely a month before the Assembly polls — several samples of dhoti, saree and lungi supplied to the public distribution system shops have been sent to the textile testing laboratories run under the Ministry of Textiles for quality check.
“We have received many complaints regarding the quality of the supplied materials. It has been complained that the material supplied to the PDS for distributing to the BPl families are not similar to the sample provided by the supplier. We have sent several such materials for the testing in the labs and reports are awaited,” Food and Civil Supplies Secretary Pradeep Kumar told The Pioneer.
Former Chief Minister Hemant Soren had launched the scheme—named after his grandparents—at Dumka, which promises two dhotis, sarees and lungis in a year to about 35 lakh BPl families and Antyodaya scheme beneficiaries of the State at Rs 10 each. For this, the State exchequer has to offload annual subsidy to the tune of around Rs 150 crore.
Quality of the fabrics has been such that the supply of the materials in Ranchi district has been stopped after receiving complaints and samples have been sent for testing in the labs of the Textiles Committee, whose main objective is to ensure the quality of textiles and textile machinery both for internal consumption and export purposes. With headquarters at Mumbai, there are 18 textile testing laboratories, including nine eco-parameters testing laboratories at various places.
Regardless of the mechanism, the long process of receiving complaints, sending samples to labs and getting the reports about quality is far from satisfactory for many. “It is a far cry to ensure quality of the dhoti-saree-lungi like this in the State like Jharkhand. DCs have been authorised to verify the quality and send the inferior quality materials for testing to the Department. The whole process is very tedious,” said a senior official of the Department. As per information with the Department, work for distributing the materials has started in all the districts of the State.
Questions have also been raised over price of the dresses quoted during the bidding process. Fabric major Mafatlal Industries of Mumbai had qualified the financial bid in August by quoting Rs 155.30 for dhoti, Rs 192.20 for saree and Rs 175.10 for lungi a piece. The another company competed alongwith Mafatlal ltd in the biding process was Sunil Industry ltd that has hardly any expertise in making civilian dresses and instead focuses on the attires supplied to defence forces.