Foodworld PDS outlet not to supply grain to poor

Mangalore Today News Network

Bangalore: Oct 25, 2014, DHNS:  The food and civil supplies department’s experiment to distribute ration to the poor in a clean and friendly environment has flopped in the City.

In June this year, the department opened a public distribution centre on the premises of Foodworld, a supermarket, in Jeevanahalli, Cox Town. Nearly 700 ration card holders who fall under the below poverty line were shifted from the regular ration shop in the Doddagunte slum to the counter at Foodworld.

This out-of-the-box initiative was aimed at helping the card holders get their share of subsidised ration in a clean environment besides ensuring that they get their full quota. They were allowed to collect the ration anytime between 8 am and 8 pm.

At the supermarket, the PDS counter was managed by the employees of the Food Corporation of India. For some weeks, everything went on smoothly with neither the supermarket managers nor the card holders facing any problem.

The department installed a point of sale machine with an electronic weighing scale and a biometric fingerprint scanner that displayed the fingerprints and photographs of the beneficiaries, besides showing their quota along with the prices.

But now, the department has decided to shut down the counter from November 1. “We are shifting all the card holders back to the PDS shop at Doddagunte slum,” confirmed Bhanu Kumar, Food Inspector for the area.

The reasons are many. The card holders are reluctant to walk about a kilometre from the slum to the supermarket to collect their groceries. In addition, they have to spend at least Rs 45 on auto-rickshaw ride to collect their ration worth less than Rs 100.

The owners of Foodworld were also not happy with the PDS counter as the subsidised rice and wheat were infested with insects and were contaminating other groceries at the supermarket. They have asked the FCI to clear the stocks at the earliest.