Minister for Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs (FCS&CA), Choudhary Zulfkar Ali, today said the consumers would get food-grains in the first 10 days of every month from March 1 this year.In this regard, the Minister issued strict instructions to the officers saying that the government cannot afford that its consumers face any hardship due to laxity on part of its employees or other concerned agency.The Minister, while conveying this decision of the government during a review meeting, said that aim of the present dispensation is to ensure that the people get timely and adequate supply of food grains in a total hassle free and comfortable manner. “There is need of prompt procuring, lifting and distribution of essentials for larger interest of consumers”, he asserted.
The Minister asked the officers to initiate the process of lifting and dispatching of food-grains from February 15 with the completion of the process by the end of the month. He asked them to start the distribution process from March 1 and wind it up by March 10.
The Minister said that the government has initiated a number of reformatory steps to further streamline the FCS&CA mechanism making the department more vibrant and transparent.
Directing the officers to get “proforma audit” of department’s functioning for the past four years, Zulfkar Ali said that regular audit of every department is must to get a clear picture about the outcome achieved.The Minister instructed the concerned to start SMS service to vigilance committees once the food grains are dispatched from the departmental stores. He also directed for conducting regular inspection of Fair Price Shops besides submitting detailed reports about the things found out during this visits.The Minister directed for constitution of a committee headed by Joint Directors, FCS&CA in both Jammu and Kashmir divisions to oversee departmental inspections for further submission of these details to the Ministry.Zulfkar stressed on the need for ensuring that no one is forced to pay “service charge” in hotels adding that all hotels should conspicuously display the same information in their premises for customer’s information. Secretary, FCS&CA, Shafiq Ahmad Raina, Special Secretary, FCS&CA, Nisar Ahmad Wani, Director, FCS&CA, Jammu, G S Chib, Joint Director, FCS&CA, Mansoor Hassan, Joint Controller, Legal Metrology Department (LMD), Kashmir, Amar Singh, Joint Controller, LMD, Jammu V K Sambyal, Deputy Director, LMD Manoj Prabhakar and other concerned officers attended the meeting.