Additional sugar quota for Arunachal

Itanagar, Feb 18 (UNI) The Centre has allotted an additional 248 MT of levy sugar in first week of February to Food Corporation of India (FCI) for Arunachal Pradesh.

Moreover, one rake of levy sugar was moved on January 8 by the FCI for its depots in the state, Union Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food&Public Distribution Joint Secretary (Sugar) Sunil Porwal stated in a letter to MP Kiren Rijiju, who had asked the Ministry to dispatch sugar to overcome crisis in the border state.

The letter further mentioned that levy sugar quota for North East states, including Arunachal is allocated in favour of FCI by the directorate of sugar with clear validity period of minimum 60 days.

It is the responsibility of FCI to lift sugar from sugar mills and move further to its field depots in states concerned to enable them to lift their quotas from these depots.

Rijiju has appreciated Lohit and Anjaw Deputy Commissioner P S Lokhande and district civil supply officers for making rice, sugar and wheat available in the two remote districts.

Meanwhile a cross section of Lower Dibang Valley district people came down heavily on the carriage contractors for their failure to deliver essential commodities to the poor and needy of the district.

''The state government has to initiate remedial steps to reactivate the public distribution system for making it effective in delivering the goods,'' said Bazar secretary Vijay Linggi, while district BJP president Kotege Mena lauded the exposure and called for making the PDS transparent.

A close monitoring system by the Directorate of Civil Supplies to ensure transportation of commodities and uninterrupted flow to the targeted beneficiaries is the need of the hour, commented zila Chairperson Dature Miuli.

Denying any shortage of essential commodities, district PDS nominees T N Enterprises said the allocated quotas were lifted and given to the fair price shops (FPSs).

However, they can not be held responsible for any discrepancy, if any, at FPSs level.

UNI