Civil supply wing will be streghthened: Minister

Vijayawada, Sep 30 (UNI) The Andhra Pradesh government will strengthen the Civil supplies wing by taking sufficient measures to give more services to the people, Andhra Pradesh civil supplies minister Kasu Krishna Reddy said today.

Talking to newspersons here, after a regional level conference with revenue and civil supplies officials Mr Reddy said suitable measures would be taken to control the loopholes in the distribution system besides regulating price of essential commodities, providing rice at Rs two per kg, distributing palm oil, LPG and ration cards properly to provide better services to the people.

He said the government had reduced the price of rice from Rs five to Rs two and spent Rs 8,124 crore on subsidies for gas, kerosen oil and two kg rice scheme.

The price of essential commodities was high and inflation rate was sky-rocketing. But despite this situation the state government had spent more than Rs 140 crore on distribution of ration cards-1.85 lakh white cards and 38 lakh pink cards- by opening DPI centres, he claimed.

The government had decided to istall 100 new DPI centres to meet the demands of new ration cards, he said adding steps were being taken to sell rice in the open market at Rs 19 per kg as against Rs 26 available in the market.

He said 9,690 metric tonnes of sugar was released to ration shops in the state to be distributed at Rs 16 per kg.

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