Cashless transactions not must: Pulla Rao

Vijayawada: Minister for price monitoring, consumer affairs, food and civil supplies Prathipati Pull Rao expressed his dissatisfaction over officials of revenue and Public Distribution System (PDS) officials of Krishna and West Godavari districts for forcing ration card holders to go for cashless transactions at ration depots.

Pulla Rao said that with these officers’ behaviour, the image of the state government was getting tarnished among public. He made it clear that cashless transaction was not mandatory for taking rice, kerosene, sugar, red gram and other essential commodities at ration depots.

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HIGHLIGHTS:

• Directs revenue and PDS officials not to insist on digital payment at ration shops
• Says distribution of sugar through ration stops will be stopped from June
• Minister inspects petrol bunks in city, warns of tough action against those who indulge in cheating in measurements

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The minister distributed Deepam gas connections to those who had no gas connection at sub-collector’s office here on Tuesday. Earlier, he held a meeting with gas and petrol dealers.

Later, Pulla Rao said as the card holders were being forced to go for cashless transactions, they were facing difficulty due to non-maintenance of sufficient cash in banks.

He warned all the revenue and PDS officials of severe action against officials who try to force cashless transactions on the beneficiaries. “Cashless transaction is not mandatory and consumers have right to buy essential commodities either by paying cash or through digital payments,” he said.

On making state cent per cent kerosene-free state, Pulla Rao said that as per Pulse Survey, 24,000 families have no gas connection in the state. At any cost, the state government would give gas connections under Deepam scheme before May 31 to all these families, he added.

The state government was supplying gas connection with cylinder and gas stove free of cost to tribals in hilly areas under Tribal Sub-plan, the minister said. The state government would stop the distribution of subsidy on blue kerosene from June 1 and white kerosene is available for consumers, he said..

Pulla Rao conducted surprise checks in petrol bunks and agencies at Gunadala and Ajit Singh Nagar to verify whether they were cheating consumers through faulty measurements. He said that people were complaining on gas and petrol dealers for shortage of gas in cylinder and petrol.

The shortage was about 12 per cent per litre of petrol and one to two kg for LPG cylinder, he noted. Under-measurement was proved during checks at some petrol bunks and gas agencies, he said.

Stating that two petrol bunks which he inspected were seized in Vijayawada for using unauthorised technology and electronic chips, the minister said the state government would not tolerate this kind of practices and would take serious action against the errant agencies.

He informed that subsidy sugar supply would also be stopped from June as the state government was not ready to incur additional burden on the commodity. While the Union government had agreed to supply sugar to Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) card holders, the state government was appealing to it to continue subsidy on sugar. It would sort out the matter after the return of Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu from the US, he added.

Civil supplies department special chief secretary B Rajasekhar said that the state government was aiming on kerosene-free state before June 2. For achieving this, the department had developed a special app for identifying who have gas connection and who did not have, he said.

Self Help Group (SHG) women would go door-to-door and register whether families have gas or not, he added. “SHG women will fill up the application on the spot and the same will be sent to the concerned gas agency for delivering new connection,” he said. Civil supplies department director G Ravi Babu, Krishna district joint collector G Chandrudu and others participated.