Commissioner of Civil Supplies C.V. Anand called upon hospital administrators and support employees to accord priority to integrity and ethics while discharging their duties.
Addressing about 400 youngsters from about a dozen colleges across the city after inaugurating the Annual Management Fest of ASCI’s Post Graduate Diploma in Hospital Management (PGDHM) ‘YBRATIONS-2017’ in the city on Saturday, Mr. Anand said: “We got a precious opportunity of serving people. All other things will be in place, if we stick to integrity and ethics in our professional life.”
Mr. Anand asked students to use technology judiciously. “With the advent of new technologies, there are new developments in every field. We should update ourselves by making use of technologies judiciously and stay up to date.”
With a view to prevent diversion of PDS rice and other essential commodities and to plug loopholes in the existing system of PDS by utilising latest technology, a Command and Control Centre was on Tuesday inaugurated at the Telangana Civil Supplies Department in Hyderabad. Finance Minister opened the Command and Control Centre, where Video Walls with 210 inches width, 72 inches length has been installed, which is one of the biggest Video wall in the state.
Sitting at the Command and Control Centre one can watch movement of vehicles utilised for transportation of PDS rice till the stocks reaches the ration shops, Telangana Commissioner of Civil Supplies C V Anand said adding the facility of seeing the operations on video wall will also be extended to all the Joint Collectors offices in the near future.
Installation of CCTV Cameras, GPS devices in all the Stage – I/II transport vehicles, biometric system at all FP Shops and all other operations are under the surveillance of Command Control System, he said.
“The Centre has been designed to watch/monitor movement of vehicles in Stage – I (stocks moved from buffer godowns to MLS points) and Stage-II (transportation of PDS rice from MLS points till the commodities reach the Fair Price Shops), he explained.
He said Command and Control Centre will enable the Department to monitor the movement of 1383 vehicles including 46 Kerosene Tankers (installed with GPS system) involved in transportation of essential commodities from the Stage-I Godowns finally to the Fair Price Shops.
The Centre will also enable watching live the CCTVs put in the Mandal Level Stock (MLS) godowns to watch “illegal” activities, if any.
To plug leakages of essential commodities earmarked for PDS and eliminate menance of middlemen, as a pilot project, 64 CCTVs have been set up in the 8 MLS godowns of Hyderabad District and after government approval CCTVs would also be installed in all the MLS godowns in the state, Anand added.
The Civil Supplies Department would soon introduce ePOS and biometric AePS in 17,500 fair price shops across Telangana, Anand said.
Chief Secretary said “application of technology will rule out diversion of rice and other essential commodities and result in savings besides quality of service will improve.”
Civil Supplies Commissioner C.V. Anand, IPS, has diverted his attention on the old stocks lying in the godowns for years. Due to the old stocks in the godowns, space problem has arisen forcing the Corporation to hire additional space and also causing damage to the fresh stocks due to cross infestation. In this process, the Corporation held discussions with the representatives of State Dal Millers’ Association for disposal of Redgram purchased in May last year and persuaded them to purchase old stocks of Redgram and Redgram Dal lying undisposed. Due to the initiation taken now, the Corporation sustained financial loss to some extent.
The Corporation will get Rs 7.50 crore on disposal of old stock. It purchased 2000 MT of Redgram @ Rs 6930 per quintal incurring Rs 16 crore from the Centre last year as per the orders of Central and State Governments to make available Redgram dal @ Rs 120 per kg. to the poor in view of price rise of Redgram dal ranging from Rs 150 to Rs 170 per kg in the open market. When tenders were called for milling of 500 MT of Redgram, only one dal miller filed his tender and 335 MT of Redgram dal was received after milling of 500MT of Redgram. The Corporation was able to sell only 11 MT of Redgram dal and released 200 MT to ICDS. Due to the sudden downfall in the rate of Redgram dal in the open market, the ICDS also did not come forward to purchase Redgram dal. Therefore, 134 MT of Redgram dal and 1500 MT of Redgram was lying with the corporation. The issue of old stocks lying in the godown came to the notice of CV Anand in the meeting held with the in-charges of MLS Points and the Commissioner initiated action for its disposal. When auction was conducted through NCDEX, only one tender was received that too with lesser rate. Due to bumper crop of redgram and downward redgram dal rate, nobody was coming forward to purchase old stock. Hence, the Commissioner held a series of discussions with dal millers and convinced them to come forward taking it as social responsibility as they are also part and parcel of Civil Supplies Department. The dal millers have agreed to purchase 493 MT of redgram @ 3300 per MT, 1008 MT of redgram @ Rs 3100 per MT and 134 MT of Redgram dal @ Rs 4100 per quintal. The Corporation realized Rs 7.50 crore against purchase of 2000 MT for Rs 15.54 crore. The Commissioner informed that the Corporation sustained a loss of Rs 8.04 crore in redgram dal due to lack of proper supervision, proper marketing planning and due to downward trend of price of redgram dal in the open market. Due to timely action taken now, the loss was reduced to some extent as dal millers were persuaded to agree to purchase redgram to avoid 100% loss. The entire exercise was done with the approval of the government.