Thiruvananthapuram: The opposition staged a walkout in the Assembly after Speaker P Sreeramakrishnan refused to admit an adjournment motion moved by Congress legislator K Muralidharan against the government's alleged failure to rein in inflation. Civil supplies minister P Thilothaman, rejecting the opposition argument, said that the government had not only brought prices under control but had also kept corrupt middlemen at bay. He said that the Electronic Point of Sale (e-POS) will be installed in all the 14,335 ration shops in the state before March 31.
“After this, corruption will be completely weeded out of the PDS system,” the minister said. Mr Thilothaman had begun his response to the adjournment motion saying that the price of rice was just Rs 37 a kg. Mr Muralidharan wanted to know where he could get rice at such low cost. “Not only are prices increasing, the Maveli and Consumerfed stores are virtually empty. There is not enough stock in these outlets,” Mr Muralidharan said. He referred to an outlet in Nanthencode in the capital to back his charge.
“Why is Muralidharan so insistent on purchasing only from the Nanthencode outlet, there are many others in the capital, some even nearby Nanthencode, that are stocked well and sell essential goods like sugar and oil and rice way below market prices,” the minister shot back.
Mr Thilothaman maintained that price of rise in the Chalai market, the wholesale market in the capital, was only Rs 37 a kg. Nonetheless, the minister said that the prices of branded rice varieties had gone up. He also said that post-GST certain malls had jacked up prices by sticking a higher price over the MRP. “We asked the Legal Metrology Department to conduct checks, and on a single day 80 cases were registered. This brought down prices,” the minister said.
Mr Thilothaman also claimed that the state was able to sell rice at prices lower than in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, two rice-producing states. He also noted that a cartel of Andhra mill owners was conspiring to keep rice prices high. As part of fighting corruption, Mr Thilothaman said that the LDF government had removed 350 wholesalers from the PDS system. Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala, however, alleged that the ‘benamis’ of blacklisted wholesalers were now supplying commodities to ration shops.
