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Ration for APL, but not for BPL families as TSO Kishtwar embezzles 2500 Quintals of BPL ration

Several Quintals of Sugar also embezzled in last six months

Asif Iqbal Naik
Early Times Report

KISHTWAR, Jan 17: Corruption in Food Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs department seems to be unending as another scandal come to the fore as TSO Kishtwar Saroop Chand has once again embezzled around 2500 Quintals of Ration meant for the distribution among the Below Poverty Line (BPL) besides also embezzled around 600 Quintals of ration meant for APL category.
In addition to this hundreds of quintals of Sugar was also embezzled by the concerned official as no sugar was provided to the consumers by the department and majority of which has been sold to private shopkeepers during Diwali.
As per the details available with Early Times, the TSO Kishtwar sold the BPL ration to private parties at higher rates instead of providing the same to the dealers who are still waiting for the BPL ration quota for the month of December 2018.
Sources told Early Times that TSO Kishtwar taking the advantage of illness of the wife of storekeeper Kishtwar who was on leave for few days sold the BPL ration to the private parties adding that after returning from the leave, the storekeeper found the ration short.
Majority of the dealers said that they are yet to receive the BPL ration for the month of December 2018 adding that TSO Kishtwar had issued excess permits while no ration has been provided to them till date. They said that in addition to this TSO Kishtwar release excessive quota to around 13 dealers against the sanctioned quota added that one dealer get 85 Quintal of ration against sanctioned quota of 35 Quintals.
They said that they have deposited the required amount for release of the ration quota for the month of December 2018 in Government treasury, but despite that they have yet to receive the ration and were subjected to unnecessary harassment by the TSO Kishtwar who is known for several corruption and is fully being backed by the political parties in previous regime.
They said that although former CAPD Minister suspended him for various frauds he managed to get himself reinstated. They said that they also brought the matter into the notice of senior officials of the department who had sought written explanation from the TSO Kishtwar.
They said that they are hopeful that Governor's administration will recover the embezzled ration from thiserring officials and also called upon the law enforcing agencies to register FIR in this fresh instant case so that the culprit TSO Kishtwar could be brought to book.
Early Times highlighted that how the government amount worth several lakhs collected on account of sale of government ration in Padder Sub Division of Kishtwar District has not been deposited in the government treasury during 2014 to ending 2017 and thus the amount which is in several crores has been embezzled by the officials of the department at the helm of the affairs.
The government of Jammu and Kashmir supplied the ration to the people on subsidized rates at various centers across the state including Kishtwar District and accordingly the former Assistant Director CAPD release the ration for food store Gulabgard, Sale Depot Gulabgard, Atholi, Kijayae, Kidroo, Sohal, Kabban, Ungaie, Ishtyari, Tun, Palali, Ligri, Massu and Machail for sale to consumers.
As per the set procedure, after selling the ration to the consumers at these sale depots, the in-charge of each sale depot is suppose to deposit the amount collected from the sale of the ration into the government treasury against the proper receipt, but according to the sources, bearing few employees of the CAPD department posted on these sale depots, majority of the employees did not deposited the said amount in government treasury and if insiders are to be believed, the amount runs into several crores.
The sources said that when a former TSO who was posted for the short period bring the matter into the notice of senior officials, he was removed prematurely within months of posting.