Special Focus on Quality of Fine Rice

Commissioner of Civil Supplies C.V.Anand has directed officials to pay special attention to the supply of fine rice for the Mid-Day-Meals Scheme without any compromise on its quality.

The Telangana Government is supplying almost 1.20 lakh metric tons of fine rice (BPT 5204, Sona Masuri) to government hostels and for implementation of Mid-Day-Meals Scheme.  Of late, many complaints had come on quality of fine rice and hence instructions were issued to all collectors and joint collectors.  With an idea of making distribution of fine rice to schools/hostels more transparent, accountable and responsible, detailed guidelines were issued.  Education Department was also requested to communicate the guidelines to all their field staff for proper implementation, Anand said.

Henceforth, school headmaster shall certify that the rice delivered, after cooking, is fine rice.  Once rice is off-loaded at the school premises (received by the HM), within 24 hours, the HM shall get the rice cooked and certify that it is fine rice(sanna biyyam).  If, after cooking, it is found that the rice is “doddu biyyam (though by look, it is fine rice) the concerned HM shall inform the Tahsildar and return the rice within 24 hours.  In such cases, action would be taken against the DT (CS) route officer and Tahsildar.

Once certified by HM that the cooked rice is of fine rice quality, if later, during inspection or based on any complaint it is found that the rice used for cooking is doddu biyyam, action shall be initiated against the concerned HM.  This shall be done every month, MEOs shall get the certificate of cooked rice from every HM and forward it to DEO. The DEO shall certify that only fine rice is cooked and given to children for the entire district.

These instructions are necessary to ensure that fine rice alone is made available to the schools under MDM scheme. All the collectors are requested to issue similar instructions in their districts. They may ensure that the above instructions are scrupulously followed in the schools and the HMs and MEOs be made responsible for proper check and submission of the certificate that the rice cooked and made available to the children under MDM Scheme is fine rice.

Banking at fair price shops

The Civil supplies Department was implementing a project to facilitate bank transactions through the e-POS terminals at the fair price shops spread across the state.There are 17,200 fair price shops, many of them at remote places where banks do not have their branches.

The fair price shops can be the points of Aadhaar enabled payment system, where bills can be paid online through biometrics or iris scan.This will be effective in the context of the push for digital transactions post-demonetisation.

"The project will be initiated in a month’s time, and implemented phase-wise in all FP shops by April next year.The present e-POS system is based on Linux operating system, and needs to be changed to Android,” Mr. Anand said.

The Department would be calling for tenders soon for purchase of Aadhaar-linked Android-based e-POS machines, the Commissioner Civil Supplies said.

Ton of joy for C V Anand

C. V. Anand hit an unbeaten 100 to guide Secunderabad Club to a six-wicket win over Amberpet CC, which had made 239 for 5 in 35 overs. IPS officer Anand led the willow charge for Secunderabad Club with his belligerent knock as the team overhauled the target in 33 overs to hand Amberpet their first defeat in 13 games this season. The Sporty Supercop made good on a promise he had made earlier in the week to hit a century in the upcoming league match.

CSC introduces road transport of gunny bags

The Civil Supplies Corporation had commenced exercise to recover gunny bags which are lying with the rice millers for a long time as it entails saving of Rs. 66 crore.

Civil Supplies Commissioner C.V. Anand focussed his attention on the recovery of gunnies as they were lying stagnant with millers. It was a practice of the Civil Supplies Corporation to provide bags to millers for sending the procured paddy for custom milled rice. It was mandatory for the millers to send back the rice after milling in the same bags, they were, however, keeping the remaining bags with them and this resulted in piling up of the bags.

The Civil Supplies Commissioner held discussions with the millers in this regard and directed the officials concerned to prepare detailed lists of millers from whom the bags were due. The Commissionerate also decided to transport new gunnies from Kolkata by road as it would save huge amount to the corporation besides cutting down the time delay. Adopting this method, the corporation was expected to save Rs. 8 crore at Re. 1 on each bag.

In addition, it was decided to purchase four lakh metric tonne of ‘doddu biyyam’ (coarse variety rice) from rice millers to meet the requirement of the public distribution system. It was accordingly agreed to purchase the rice at Rs. 2,400 a quintal with an understanding that the corporation would bear the cost of two gunnies costing Rs. 106. As this could lead to financial losses to the corporation, discussions were held with millers and they were convinced to utilise gunnies already lying with them under the CMR accounts for delivering the coarse rice and the move had resulted in saving of Rs. 13.27 crore to the corporation.

GPS to track PDS trucks

Telangana Civil Supplies Commissioner C V Anand on Sunday said that all vehicles supplying commodities, especially rice, from godowns to fair price shops would be equipped with Global Positioning System (GPS) gadgets to prevent black marketing.
Addressing a review meeting with the transport contractors here, the Civil Supplies Commissioner said that all Stage-I and Stage-II vehicles carrying rice and other commodities from the FCI godowns to MLS points would be equipped with the GPS. This would ensure that the vehicles carrying PDS rice are not diverted to other routes.
He appealed to the contractors to support the initiative as it would prevent black marketing of PDS items. Anand, said that his department was making all out efforts to prevent diversion of PDS stocks and was keeping a strict watch on the movement of stocks from Civil Supplies Corporation godown  to Fair Price shops to ensure that the essential commodities reach the genuine beneficiaries and that no malpractices and diversions takes place.

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The Commissioner said that installing GPS systems in vehicles will not put any additional burden on the operators as it can be recovered with increased profits once the system was in place and diversion of food grains was checked.

He made it clear that the vehicles carrying stocks should not cross the district border without obtaining prior permission of the civil supplies corporation. He said all concerned must ensure that only one telephone number was allotted to each vehicle on a permanent basis. Transport contractors will be given special ID and password to know the whereabouts of their vehicles.
Responding to the request of the transport contractors to give them two years term instead of one year, the Commissioner said the term of the contractors, who worked honestly without any complaints will be given extension for one more year.