Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 16: Maintaining that Maximum Retail Price (MRP) written on the consumer items has no legal sanctity, Minister of Consumer Affairs, Public Distribution and Transport Ch. Mohammed Ramzan today said that this will be removed.
Replying to the debate on annual grants of his Ministry in State Assembly during second sitting here today, the Minister said that the Director CAPD has the powers to take action in this regard and fix MRP.
The Minister said for fixing the MRP the Department will see how much cost was incurred on raw material and what are the additional expenses involved on the consumer product on the basis of which the MRP will be fixed.
He said the Joint Director CAPD will exclusively look after consumer affairs in the state.
Terming the Consumer Affairs 1987 Act irrelevant, he said it needs to be amended and Law Department will be approached in this regard soon.
The Minister said by taking action against confectioners the situation will not change but the Department has to act against the big wigs.
He said a bisleri costing Rs 12 is sold for Rs 25 at airports and other places in retail and action needs to be taken against the same.
The Minister said that home delivery of cooking gas has been ordered in Jammu and Srinagar cities and from March 31 no vehicle will be seen on road delivering the LPG.
By May 30, the home delivery will be ensured on district headquarters and towns and by July 31 process will be completed in entire state.
He said more 172 gas agencies will be given distributorship and dealership in every block of the state under Rajiv Gandhi Gramin LPG VitranScheme and advertisement in this regard will be issued soon.
He said the Government wants to see that there is no problem of cooking gas in the state.
He said to check the pilferage of ration in godowns the CAPD has ordered the physical verification of godowns and at Letpora Gowdown in Kashmir it has been started which will be followed by other godowns of the state also.
Warning the officials involved in scandals and pilferages of ration, he said tough action will be taken against them. Not only those will be dealt under law who are involved in embezzlements but action will also be taken against those officers and officials who have a bad reputation in the Department.
Admitting that the Department has earned a bad name with scandals and scams, he said the minimum scam in the Department is of Rs 42 lakh while the biggest scam is of Rs 1.60 crore.
Ch Ramzan said various measures have been taken to streamline the Department and he urged the Finance Minister, Abdul Rahim Rather to depute the accounts officers in his Department at district headquarters so that proper accountability is maintained in the CAPD.
He said though even Chief Secretary has no authority of keeping Government money with him for even a single night, the storekeepers in CAPD were keeping the Department money with them for months together and in this regard the orders were issued for daily remittance of the cash in Bank in cities and urban areas. However in far-flung areas where the bank branches are not available the store keeper can remit the money in banks within four days.
The Minister said that ration for next month will not be issued in any district till the officers get it writing from the concerned Sarpanchs and Panchs of the area that the ration of last month was issued properly.
He said the full quota of all districts will be released in one go and no where advance quota will be released. Besides the officers have been given instructions that atta should reach every store in time, he added.
Admitting that the Jammu city was getting less ration than what is sanctioned per head, the Minister assured the members on flour of the House that within one month this problem will be solved and the Jammu city every family will get 35 kgs of ration as per standard.
He said the Kashmiri migrants as well as nomadic Gujjars are getting separate quota of ration from Centre and rejected that their ration was being deducted either from Jammu or Kashmir quota.
He said that Director CAPD Kashmir has even assured him that the Department can provide 40 kgs of ration per family within its resources in Kashmir.
Maintaining that CAPD and Transport comes under the purview of Essential Services, he said our efforts will be to come up to the expectations of the people and Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah.
Maintaining that there is always the scope of improvement in every Department he said his efforts will be to bring more improvement in CAPD and Transport Departments.
Admitting that the state is dependent on import of food grains since independence, he said in 1947 when the population of J&K was 26 lakh only it imported four lakh MTs of food grains from Centre.
This time when the population of state has touched 1.26 crore it imports 22 lakh MTs of food grains. The reason for this is diversification of agriculture land to horticulture and industries in the state.
Ch. Ramzan said the reasons why the 35 kgs ration is not given in various areas is that state was getting 18 lakh MTs of ration in the year 2000 when the population was 99 lakh and this time when the population has touched 1.26 crore the ration received by us from Centre is near about same. There are 22,73,000 souls comprising of about 4.50 lakh families in the state who don’t get ration and this need is to be fulfilled within the quota supplied to the state, he added.
He expressed the hope that something good will happen for the state after the passage of Food Security Bill by Parliament.
He said the shortfall will be met after this Bill is passed by the Centre. The State has recommended to Centre to provide 90 percent ration in rural area and 80 percent in urban areas and the left out percentage would be met by the state with its own resources.
The Minister also announced that within one month ration cards will be given to those people in the state who have no ration cards as ration card is a mini state subject needed for gas connection, sim card, admission etc.
Sharing members concern over the increasing accidents in the state, the Minister said stringent measures are being taken to avoid accidents. The orders have been passed that no driving license is issued below age of 18 years and any officer found issuing the license below this age, stern action would be taken against him, he added.
Besides a driver will have to undergo stringent punishment in case the accident was result of his negligence, he said.
Later the House passed the grants amounting to Rs 1005.08 crore for CAPD and Transport Ministry.
Earlier M Y Tarigami demanded action against the big crocodiles looting the Department while Prof Chaman Lal Gupta stressed on providing of 35 kg ration per family in Jammu. Prof Gupta said as per survey the number of deaths in road accidents is more than the people killed in militancy in the state and termed it a cause of concern.
Harshdev Singh of NPP stressed on giving teeth to Consumer Affairs Department by opening of district level consumer courts while BJP’s Jugal Kishore Sharma stressed on opening of two LPG agencies in his Nagrota Constituency.
Ex Minister Qamar Ali Akhoon also highlighted the various steps taken during his tenure to streamline the Department.
NC’s Dr Mustafa Kamaal, Indu Pawar of Congress, Bimla Lutra, T Namgyal, Ashok Kumar, Peer Aufaq, Mohammed Sharief Niaz and Mohammed Ashraf Ganai also participated in the debate.
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