Chouhan undertakes surprise check of FCI godown

Bhopal, Jan 15 (UNI) Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has undertaken a surprise check of Chhola-based godown of the Food Corporation of India.

Inspecting stocks of wheat and rice yesterday, Mr Chouhan expressed displeasure at the bad quality of imported red wheat. He said the Centre was supplying bad quality of imported red wheat at exorbitant rates, an official release said here.

He said the government would write to the Centre in this connection. Besides, he would meet with concerning Union Ministers and urge them not to send bad quality wheat to Madhya Pradesh.

Mr Chouhan said purchase of bad quality wheat at high rates smacked of a big scam.

He went inside the godown and inspected wheat of various qualities stored there.

Alleging that the Centre was meting out step-motherly treatment to Madhya Pradesh, he said lakhs of tonnes of wheat had been allotted to Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh but Madhya Pradesh had been allotted only 66 tonnes of food grain.

The government would demand the Centre to raise APL and BPL quota of Madhya Pradesh besides sending good quality of wheat.

He said Madhya Pradesh denizens would launch an agitation against the supply of bad quality red imported wheat, purchased from foreign countries at Rs 14 per kg while the rate of Indian wheat is only Rs 8.50 per kg.

Mr Chouhan would take the sample of this bad quality wheat and show it to Union Minister when he meets them.

He said further action would be taken by the state government if the situation does not improve even after that.

Later, the Chief Minister also visited Mamata Women's Primary Cooperative Consumer Committee Shiv Nagar and Ekta Women's Cooperative Consumer Store Damkhera. He checked stock register and food grain distribution register very minutely and apprised himself of the situation of kerosene distribution.

He inspected APL and BPL registers separately. Mr Chouhan sought information and remarks by the people who had gathered at the spot.

The Chief Minister instructed the Bhopal collector to probe why timely inspections of the both the store were not undertaken and constant monitoring was not done.

He asked the collector to seek explanation from the concerning food officials. Later, Mr Chouhan said for irregularities in people's problems and programmes big officers would be held responsible instead of lower grade employees.

The Chief Minister also instructed Bhopal collector to put up a report after inspecting last six months records, registers of stock, distribution and other documents of all the ration shops.

Principal Secretary (Food and Civil Supplies) Malay Rai, CM's Secretary Iqbal Singh Bais, Collector RK Mathur and other officers were present, the release added.

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