Minister for Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs, Chowdhary Zulfkar Ali today reiterated government's commitment to ensure equitable development of all regions of the state with emphasis on providing enhanced basic amenities to improve the living standards of people.The Minister said this at the foundation stone laying ceremony for working standard laboratory of Legal Metrology Department at Chowkian, Rajouri.The laboratory is being constructed at a cost of Rs 50 lakh with high-tech measuring instruments for enhanced accuracies of test result to assist the department properly execute its duties.Interacting with the officers, the Minister asked them to effectively enforce accuracies in weight and measures, commerce and industrial transactions, sale of commodities at printed price of manufacturers and packers, to ensure that the consumers get due value of the money they spent. He asked for periodical verification and stamping of weight and measures used in commerce and industrial units. He also called for conducting surprise inspections to detect violations of the provisions under the Legal Metrology Laws.
Asking the construction agency to expedite the work on all departmental constructions, the Minister assured the State Housing Board that there would be no delay in release of funds or other requisite support from the department.The Minister extending gratitude to Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti for her intervention in acquiring sanction from central government for construction of a tunnel on Mughal Road, said that this will make Mughal road functional through the year thus further boosting the economic scenario of this region. Besides, the new road link launched between Budhal and Shopian regions will provide an opportunity to these backward and far flung areas to get equal opportunities for growth nad development, he said.
Later, the Minister convened a public grievances redressal camp where locals apprised him of various problems being faced in their areas including water and power supply concerns, strengthening of interior link roads, delay in release of old age and widow pensions etc.The Minister assured the populace that all their issues would be taken up along the proper channels and will be resolved in due course of time.Secretary, FCS&CA Shafiq Ahmad Raina, Deputy Commissioner Shabir Ahmed Bhat, ADDC AS Chib, SSP Suleman Choudhary, ADC Mumtaz Choudhary, Joint Controller Legal Metrology V S Sambyal, Deputy Controller LM Manoj Prabhakar, Executive Engineer JK Housing Board Ashok Khokhar, Assistant Controller Legal Metrology Rajesh Heera besides other officers were also present on the occasion.