Excelsior Correspondent
UDHAMPUR, June 19: The population of over 43,000 souls in Dudu and Basantgarh Sub Divisions of district Udhampur is facing acute shortage of ration and kerosene oil.
For these two Sub Divisions there is only one post of the Tehsil Supply Officer and its office is located at Majori. The main old ration store of the area is also located there and the TSO and his staff operates only from there. There is only one ration outlet at Basantgarh and also at Dudu. Mostly they remain closed as ration reached there hardly once a month and sugar supply to the area has not reached for the last six months.
Block Congress president Basantgarh Mushtaq Ahmed told the Excelsior that there is no office of TSO at Basantgarh while it is old tehsil and now full fledged Sub Division. The CAPD has not opened its office at Basantgarh till date. There is no proper monitoring by the CAPD staff or other officers and moreover public of over a dozen villages of this Sub Division is badly suffering due to acute shortage of ration. The public is badly suffering due to shortage of kerosene oil as well. There is always power crisis in this remote area and due to non-availability of kerosene oil, the people are dependent on candle light. He said there should be two more ration outlets in the area and Government should ensure adequate and regular supply of ration.
Similar problems is being faced by the people from Dudu Sub Division having population of over 21000 souls. Hans Raj Sarpanch from Dudu area said that for the last more than 6-7 months, the people of the area are facing more crisis of getting ration. He said the Government has failed to ensure regular and adequate supply of ration. The depot always remain dry and people are getting sugar from open market. He said that there was no TSO office at Dudu Sub Divisional headquarters and CAPD has failed to ensure essential supply of ration to the people of this remote belt of Udhampur. He said despite repeated request to the senior officers in the Administration, the condition of supply has not improved,.
One Girdhari Lal from Basantgarh area alleged that CAPD has not paid carriage charges to the ponywallas of the areas for the last two years and therefore, they have stopped carrying ration for the CAPD. Due to this, the public is suffering. Depot holders are doing this all at their own level. There should be inquiry that who has withdrawn the carriage money of the poor horse/ ponywallas. He said similar is the problems in Khaned in Basantgarh and other far flung villages of both the divisions.
SDM Basantgarh, Kewal Krishan when contacted said that he had received a complaint regarding non-payment of carriage charges of pony/horse wallas from Khaned area by CAPD Department. He said that after it, he took up the issue with the concerned AD CAPD Udhampur but they all are still unpaid. The pony wallas have also refused to lift ration from the store or other road side dumping places. The poor workers should be paid their carriage charges regularly and CAPD officers should monitor functioning properly. He stressed the need to shift TSO office from Majori to Basantgarh and separate TSO for Dudu area.
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