Food Department distributes RTs of poor among rich, influential

SRINAGAR — People across Kashmir are up in arms against the Food Department over alleged large scale corruption, misappropriation in the distribution of new Ration Tickets (RTs) among the beneficiaries under National Food Security Act (NFSA).

A group of people accused the Food and Civil Supplies Department (F&CS) Kashmir of large scale corruption, bungling and embezzlement in implementing the NFSA scheme of 2017 on ground in the Kashmir Valley.

They said that in 2017, government came up with a scheme under National Food Security Act (NFSA), under which new Ration Tickets (RTs) were supposed to be issued among the beneficiaries that fall under AAY category, but they claimed that the scheme was not implemented properly and legal beneficiaries have not received the benefits of scheme till date.

“Under the scheme, F&CS Department Kashmir was supposed to distribute new Ration Tickets (RTs) among the beneficiaries that fall under AAY category for which a survey was also carried out, but scheme was not implemented on ground and the survey information was only used to grab huge sums of money by the concerned authorities,” said a local Ayoub Ahmad.

The benefits of the scheme were not provided to the one’s following proper procedure of documentation. “The deserving eligible beneficiaries were denied the benefits,” he alleged.

Moreover, we also learnt that for the implementation of this scheme under the NFS Act, a formal order was issued by the government in this regard in 2015.

As per the order, the implementation was to be done by the district level committees headed by DC’s and accordingly then by the Tehsil level committees under the supervision of the Tehsildar.

“As per the order, 35 kg per family rice at the rate of Rs. 3 was meant to be distributed among the legal beneficiaries of AAY categories. But ironically the procedure of distribution was not followed or applied anywhere in the valley,” said another local, Mohammad Shafi Shah.

As per the locals, the information of AAY beneficiaries was only used for misappropriation all over Jammu and Kashmir and the Ration Tickets were kept undistributed.

They appealed to the investigating agencies to probe the alleged large scale corruption, embezzlement and act against the erring officials, whosoever is involved.

Meanwhile, despite repeated attempts, Director F&CS Department Kashmir was not available for his comments.