Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Jan 8: Food grains worth several crores of rupees are wasted every year in Jammu and Kashmir during movement of stocks by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) from one place to another and during eight months of the current financial year the transit losses have been worked out at over Rs 4 crore.
Revealing this in its latest report, a Parliamentary Panel has observed that there was no let up in transit losses being suffered by the Food Corporation of India while moving stocks in different parts of Jammu and Kashmir. However, it has observed that the storage losses of FCI in this hilly State are far less than the transit losses.
During the current financial year (2014-15) up to November 2014, the Food Corporation of India moved a total of 286058 Metric Tonnes of food grains out of which 1899 Metric Tonnes quantity was lost during transit from one place to another. The value of food grains lost in the transit has been worked out at Rs 4.33 crore. However, the storage losses were far less as only 91 Metric Tonnes of food-grains lost during this exercise.
The Food Corporation of India has a network of its storage complexes in different parts of Jammu and Kashmir from where the food-grains are lifted by the Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution Department for further distribution to the consumers. Though there was enough focus on curtailing storage losses effective steps are yet to be taken to curtail the transit losses.
This can be gauged from the fact that in Uttarakhand, which is also a hilly State, the transit losses are far less than Jammu and Kashmir. During the period FCI suffered losses to the tune of Rs 4.33 crore in Jammu and Kashmir, the same were only Rs 1.18 crore in Uttarakhand, the Parliamentary Panel said.
According to the panel, the computerization of Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) in Jammu and Kashmir is also going on at snail’s pace. “Not much progress has been made in this regard”, the panel has remarked while mentioning that an amount of Rs 6.11 crore as Central Assistance was given to the State for computerization purpose but Utilization Certificates have not been furnished.
“Not only Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution Department even the NIC and Information Technology Departments are responsible for this as all these departments have an important role to ensure computerization”, official sources said, adding “this exercise is still at infancy stage and no time frame has so far been fixed for its completion”. The slackness in this regard is notwithstanding the fact that computerization is imperative to check bogus rationees, they regretted.
The panel has also observed that for consumer awareness vis-à-vis quality of food grains, checking overcharging and fleecing, the Union Government had provided more than Rs 15 lakh to Jammu and Kashmir but Utilization Certificates are still pending despite lapse of several years.
According to the official sources, “consumer awareness is not being carried out in Jammu and Kashmir at the required level for unknown reasons”. Similar is the fate of strengthening of Legal Metrology infrastructure for which grant-in-aid was also provided to the State but nobody knows whether the amount was utilization for the intended purpose.
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