Minister for Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs (FCS&CA) Choudhary Zulfkar Ali today called officials of the Department to maintain high standards and provide hassle-free services to the people across the State.The Minister said this during a meeting convened here today to review the functioning of the Department. The Minister further called for initiating various innovative measures to bring for establishing transparency and accountability into the Department.Complimenting the Department and National Informatics Centre (NIC) team for successful launch of department’s “Transparency Portal” inaugurated by Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti on Friday, the Minister said FCS&CA is widely receiving acclaims from different quarters for their dedicated work ethics.“We can’t afford to be complacent with what we have achieved so far. Each one of us has to strive hard to maintain the high standards that the department has set for itself,” the Minister said.Expressing gratitude to Chief Minister for her appreciation, the Minister urged the department to not be complacent and work with persistence to improve shortcomings within the functioning of the department to make a better system. “Every member of the department has a responsibility and a role towards its welfare and everyone should ‘self introspect’ so to figure out ways for improving services and delivering duties in a better manner”, he added.
Urging for timely distribution of food grains among consumers, the Minister said, “We are duty bound to provide five Kgs of ration to every soul who is on our portal, and people should get ration on time.” He instructed all the Assistant Directors from Jammu present in the meeting to distribute available food resources on a timely basis. He also directed the officials present to ensure that the distribution process is done at designated places only, and food grains are distributed as per the rates set by the government. Zulfkar Ali also asked Assistant Directors to prepare a list of nomadic population in Jammu within a fortnight, which would later be uploaded on the online portal.The meeting also decided that ADs would send daily updates to Nodal Officer about the status of grievances posted on the transparency portal. Besides, the Minister also directed for making trilingual “Information flex boards” which would be displayed in front of all the fair price shops.Secretary, FCS&CA, Shafiq Raina, Director FCS&CA Jammu G S Chib along with other concerned officers attended the meeting.