Minister unearths dumped rotting food grains meant for flood victims

Seals the store, orders time bound inquiry

5 Dariya News (Rouf Pampori)

Pulwama 11-Jul-2015

Food Minister Chowhdary Zulifkar Ali Saturday was aghast after he found huge quantity of food grains including rice and wheat lying rotting at one of the store room of Food Corporation of India (FCI) gowdown located at Letapora here in South Kashmir.Sources told CNS that Minister for Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution (CAPD) had a surprise visit to the godown. During the visit the pungent smell emanating from one of the locked stores, forced the Minister to order the authorities to open up the lock of the store. “What the Minister and the officials accompanying him shocked everyone. Rotten rice and wheat in large quantity and cluster of dead rats and birds emanating foul and pungent smell irked everyone including the Minister.”

The Minister immediately directed the authorities to seal the store and sought details from the concerned officials. “The officials to the surprise of the Minister informed that the rotting rice and wheat lying in the store had come from Chattisgarh and Bihar and it was meant for the flood affected people of Kashmir. Instead of distributing it among the flood victims, the vested interests dumped it later one did not find an opportunity to use it,” an official who was part of the Ministers team said.When contacted Minister for CAPD, Chowhdary Zulifkar told CNS that he has directed the Secretary CAPD to probe the matter and inform how much supply was procured and how much was distributed and why such a huge quantity of rice and wheat was allowed to dump here without distributing it among flood victims,” he said.

An FCI official wishing not to be named said that they are not responsible for it. He said that some officials on the directions of few politicians in 2014 dumped this relief material in the store. The concerned department  officials deserted the store after dumping rice and wheat into it. They locked the doors of store and since then none of the CAPD official visited here" he said adding that the material was dumped to distribute during floods to gain some votes from the flood hit people.Meanwhile, the Minister directed the authorities to stop procuring URS brand wheat. The directions came after the Minister found the wheat samples of inferior quality. He also directed the authorities to make sure that bags containing food grains carry the stamp ‘J&K Supply’ instead of ‘Punjab Supply’. (CNS)