Telangana Govt to drop sugar from PDS commodities list?

Telangana Govt to drop sugar from PDS commodities list?
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Ration card holders are unlikely to get sugar from fair price shops in the quota for May as the Civil Supplies Corporation managing director CV Anand had directed the corporation officials not to accept sugar stocks from suppliers and exhaust the existing stocks by supplying them to the dealers. 

Kothagudem: Ration card holders are unlikely to get sugar from fair price shops in the quota for May as the Civil Supplies Corporation managing director CV Anand had directed the corporation officials not to accept sugar stocks from suppliers and exhaust the existing stocks by supplying them to the dealers.

He directed the officials to maintain the status quo till further orders. Therefore, hereafter the fair price shops will be limited to supplying rice and kerosene to the cardholders

There are 2,75,575 cards in Bhadradri-Kothagudem district. Of them, 11,579 are Antyodaya cards, 2,57,972 are food security cards and four are Annapurna cards. Over 10 lakh cardholders receive sugar every month. The FP shops sell sugar at Rs 13.50 while the Centre bears subsidy of Rs 18.50 per kg. The state government bears the difference amount.

Recently, the Centre went on record stating that it would lift subsidy on sugar. However, the state governments are pleading with the Centre to not to do so. There was no change in the Centre’s stand. However, the officials categorically said that they had supplied sugar to FP dealers in April.

But, many dealers complain of not receiving sugar stocks. Anand had apparently written to officials not to release sugar to the FP shops. There were instances of releasing additional quota of sugar on festive occasions. But the latest developments are a pointer to dropping the sugar from list of commodities sold to cardholders.

During Kirankumar Reddy’s regime of undivided Andhra Pradesh, nine essential commodities were issued for a paltry sum of Rs 180 in the name of Amma Hastam. The nine commodities include wheat flour, salt, chilli powder, turmeric, tamarind, sugar, pulses and oil. Congress leader Tandra Narasimha Rao questioned the rationale behind removing sugar from the list.

Speaking to The Hans India, CPM legislator Sunnam Rajaiah said stopping sale of sugar to the cardholders would pose problems to the government. In fact, 16 commodities should be sold to cardholders through the PDS.

Stating that the TRS government has been playing with the lives of people, he said earlier one kg of sugar was used to be given. Later it was shrunk to half a kg. Now, the government scrapped sugar from the list of items. He demanded the government to restore sale of sugar through the PDS and threatened to launch an agitation if the public distribution system was not enforced in a foolproof manner.

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