After several months of uncertainty and shortage of sugar supplies, there appears some relief in the situation as the State Government is reported to have signed the deal with a sugar dealer from Maharashtra. Supply of subsidized sugar to the State was halted by the Food Corporation of India some time back which threw the Public Distribution System in both the regions of the State into total disarray. Food and Supplies Department had to find alternatives of direct purchase and further supply of sugar to the consumers. This led to a complicated procedure and the State Government constituted a high-level Purchase Committee for procurement of PDS sugar from open market. Tenders were floated and finally a miller from Maharashtra was announced the successful bidder.
Naturally the Government had to complete all formalities of purchase huge stock of sugar to the tune of 8000 tons. As such one stage was to get the quality of sugar tested by a reputed national laboratory. This process also took its time and when the report came and was passed, the next stage was of issuing formal order of acceptance of the tender of the bidder. It is this stage that we are talking about. The Directors of PDS in both the provinces have been advised to place orders with the firm. According to informed sources, supply of subsidized sugar is likely to be made available at the stores in the State by the first week of the next month. This will overcome the shortage of sugar the price of which had shot up in black market. In particular the sweetmeat shopkeepers had suffered enormously owing to acute shortage of sugar. The clearance of one bidder for supply of sugar will immensely bring relief to them.
We hope that public distribution system will efficiently handle the situation and that the anti-corruption agencies will not allow any sort of vandalizing of the unsuspecting public. The PDS has already suffered censure of the people and it should not give any chance to anybody in regard to smooth and fair handling of subsidized sugar to the consumers.
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