Kakinada: Ration dealers fail to supply red gram, sugar

Kakinada: As the ration dealers fail to clear dues with Civil Supplies Department, the ration cardholders are not getting red gram and sugar through the Public Distribution System (PDS).

People are worried as red gram is essential in December and January months as many festivals like Tholi Ekadasi, Sankranti and others are coming up in these months. Since many of the devotees are in Ayyappa Deekshas, they need to feed them with recipes with red gram.

G Ananta Lakshmi said that red gram and sugar, essential for daily consumption, are denied to regular customers. Another beneficiary G Kumar also stated that he has not received red gram and sugar for the last two months.

It is learnt that some of the ration dealers were selling red gram and sugar to others and telling the customers that government has not supplied. Once the beneficiary's fingerprint is registers with PDS and takes rice, automatically, the system shows the beneficiary received all commodities supplied through PDS. So, the beneficiaries are being cheated.

DSO P Prasada Rao stated that they are supplying red gram to every ration dealer and action would be taken against them if they fail to supply.

Joint Collector Summit Kumar told "The Hans India" that sugar and 400 tonnes of red gram is available. He said that if people are reluctant to take red gram and sugar, the distribution was stopped. He advised people to lodge complaint if they did not receive sugar and red gram. He assured them that there would be an inquiry if the ration dealers who take the commodity and but fails to supply it to cardholders. "Within two days the problems will be solved and everyone will get red gram and sugar without any problem", says Joint Collector