Hitting hard on rampant irregularities in the Public Distribution System (PDS), Chief Minister Raghubar Das directed officials to hand over more and more PDS shops to the women self help groups (SHGs) in the State. The CM, speaking during Seedhi Baat programme at Soochna Bhawan here on Tuesday, also expressed concern over most of the complaints related to PDS shops coming from Santhal Pargana.
The CM also directed Food and Civil Supplies Secretary Vinay Choubey to immediately make a visit to Santhal Pargana and take action against corrupt officials and PDS dealers. He advised Chaubey not to suspend the erring PDS dealer shops, rather cancel their licenses and allot them to women SHGs.
Babita Devi of Thakurgangti village in Godda complained that the PDS shopkeeper was not distributing ration to the beneficiaries for the last three months while Rajan Kumar Saahi from Saraiyahaat in Dumka made a similar complaint and conveyed the CM that he was being threatened by the dealer that his name will be removed from the list of beneficiaries after he lodged the complaint against him. Taking the matter seriously, the CM expressed his dissatisfaction over the PDS working in Santhal Pargana and directed Chaubey to look into the matter and involve more and more SHGs into this business.
“Jan Samvad has made a remarkable improvement in the last one year and has played an important role in resolving problems of the common man of this State. Still, there is a need to improve coordination between the district and state headquarters,” said the CM. Hearing the voice of the last person sitting at the social strata was the most important thing in a democracy, he added.
The CM further added that the experiences during Jan Samwad revealed that district headquarters ignore the poor folks and hence they are forced to come to Ranchi with their complaints. This practice should be stopped immediately and dignified services should be rendered to the last man of the society, he added.
While hearing the matter of Ramdev Yadav from Giridih, Das giving a classic example of giving priorities to public interest, directed the officials to make full payment against a well dug under MNREGA on ‘Gair Majarua’ land in Giridih. Yadav had been allotted a well in Birni block of Giridih. After few days the work got started, it was revealed that the land on which the well was being dug was a GM land. The work was stopped and he was paid a sum of `6000 only but Yadav completed the work putting his own money and the whole village was getting benefitted with it. After getting the details from the officials, the CM ordered to make full payment to Yadav without any delay.
The CM also disposed of the matter of Munshi Mahto of Mahuatand in Bokaro, Arun Sinha of Ranchi, Jayant Yadav and Nisha Khatoon of Godda and others. The Chief Minister heard as many as 17 complaints coming from all across Jharkhand.
Principal Secretary to CM Sanjay Kumar, Secretary to CM Sunil Barnwal and other senior officials were also present during the programme.