Headlines Today cameras capture trucks diverting PDS wheat meant for Delhis poor to private flour mills. Modus operandi An insider revealed on a hidden camera how the food delivery chain, starting from FCI to poor people, is short-circuited by some greedy people to rob the poor of their daily bread. The person involved in transporting the wheat said the diverted stock is sold to private mills at a price lower than the prevailing market rate. He divulged that ration shop owners used hundreds of duplicate ration cards to siphon off the grains meant for the poor people. He said officials -- from top to bottom in the hierarchy -- of the concerned departments get a cut from around Rs.200 profit earned by diverting each sack of wheat. The well-oiled racket cannot function without connivance of everyone from the local police to the food inspector, he said. Congresss hollow promises When the pilferage of cheaper grains has been so rampant in the national capital, how can Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi say so confidently that the highly subsidised rice (at Rs.3 per kg), wheat (Rs.2 per kg) and coarse grains (Rs.1 per kg) will be given to every poor of the country? The UPA governments grand proclamations stand busted that it would deliver on the food security that would cost the exchequer a whopping Rs.1.25 lakh crore a year to satisfy the hunger of Indias poor as the new scheme might also just go down the drain.
Posted on: Tue, 15 Oct 2013 03:53:28 +0000