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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Bitter truth: Sugar goes missing from PDS shops by Santosh K Kiro

Bitter truth: Sugar goes missing from PDS shops by Santosh K Kiro

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published Published on May 1, 2010   modified Modified on May 1, 2010


At Rs 34 a kg, sugar is bitter for some 29 lakh BPL families who haven’t received a grain of the sweetener at subsidised rate for over seven months now.

Every BPL card-holder is entitled to a monthly quota of 1.12 kg sugar from PDS shops at Rs 13.50 a kg while the price in the open market is Rs 34 a kg.

Streamlining the public distribution system (PDS) during his tenure, former Governor K. Sankaranarayanan had pulled up the bureaucracy and ensured that every BPL family got its share of sugar. However, plans were thrown into disarray by September 2009 and beneficiaries stopped receiving subsidised sugar from October.

“We have forgotten the taste of sugar. Our pockets do not allow us to buy sugar from the open market and PDS shops have stopped supplying it,” said Salma Khatun, a BPL beneficiary living in the Kadru area of the capital.

While the poor continue to suffer, bureaucrats and PDS dealers are engaged in a blame game over the lapse.

Officials of the state food and civil supplies department said that dealers had failed to deposit the draft amount for procurement of sugar for months. The latter, on the other hand, complained that sugar was in short supply because of a laggard and corrupts bureaucracy.

“There is delay in procuring sugar because PDS dealers do not deposit the money for their stock on time,” said Dayanand Mahli, the joint secretary of food and civil supplies department.

Naresh Singh, the president of Jan Bitaran Pranali Bikreta Sangh, which has 18,000 members in Jharkhand, denied the allegations. “We usually submit the money to the government on a regular basis. The delay occurs because the bureaucracy is slow,” he said.

At the rate of Rs 13.41 per kg, every PDS dealer has to deposit money in the form of bank draft with the state government for the fixed amount of sugar he is allotted to distribute among beneficiaries under him.

The government allows PDS dealers to sell sugar at Rs 13.50 per kg, giving them only Rs 0.09 as commission per kg. So, sometimes PDS dealers sell sugar at Rs 34 a kg in the open market.

Mahli said the government had sent a 1,500 quintal procurement order to Bihar State Food Corporation for October-November last year. So, there shouldn’t have been a supply shortage. The food body is yet to be bifurcated and is responsible for procurement under the public distribution system for both Bihar and Jharkhand.

There are no sugar mills in Jharkhand and the sweetener is procured from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra.

Sugar is usually ferried by trains to Jharkhand. The Bihar State Food Corporation then distributes it among PDS dealers.


The Telegraph, 30 April, 2010, http://telegraphindia.com/1100501/jsp/jharkhand/story_12401367.jsp


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