Thiruvananthapuram: Civil supplies minister P. Thilothaman said that the door-to-door delivery of foodgrains, which has begun on a pilot basis in Kollam district, will be implemented in all districts by June. The door-to-door project will be rolled out in six districts, including Thiruvananthapuram, Ernakulam and Kozhikode, in May itself.
“The objective is to prevent the leakage and diversion of essential goods,” the minister said in the Assembly on Wednesday, responding to an adjournment motion moved by Kerala Congress (Jacob) leader Anoop Jacob.
The minister said that the foodgrains were prone to maximum leakage or diversion when foodgrains were transported from state godowns, from where the goods are lifted, and fair price shops.
“Middlemen, who loot fair price shops, will be completely done away with,” the minister said.
The doorstep delivery of foodgrains, the minister said, will achieve just that.
It is the authorised wholesale distribution licencee who transports the foodgrains from the Food Corporation of India depot to the wholesale stock point incurring transportation costs and informal costs like ‘attikuly’ charged by the labour unions and truck cartels at the FCI godown, a practice declared illegal by the High Court. What’s more, the minister said that GPS tracking systems would be installed in vehicles taking the foodgrains to the doorsteps of the fair price shops. Under the new system, foodgrains will be reached to the AWD who will then take it to the authorised retail distributor or ration shops without encountering any hassles in between. The minister said that the state would fully implement the Food Security Act by the end of June.
The onset of the Act had reduced the state’s quota of foodgrains. While the average annual targeted PDS allotment for Kerala in 2010-13 was around 16.01 lakh metric tonnes, under NFSA, the state is entitled to an annual food grain allocation of 14.25 lakh metric tonnes only.
Mr Thilothaman said Electronic Point of Sale (E-Pos) would be installed in all ration shops in the state. “This would ensure absolute transparency in ration shops,” the minister said. He said tenders had been floated for the installation of E-pos.
