Bhubaneswar: Expressing concern over deviation of rules by private dealers engaged under Public Distribution System (PDS), Odisha State Food Commission Saturday asked all District Magistrates (DMs) to ensure replacement of all private dealers by the institutional dealers by March 15, 2019.
In a letter to all Collectors, OSFC chairperson Ranglal Jamuda said, “While notifying the Odisha PDS (Control) Order- 2016, the state government made it clear that all private Fair Price Shop (FPS) dealers are to be replaced by institutional dealers within a period of 2 years.”
Subsequently, he said, the Food Supplies & Consumer Welfare department notified the Odisha PDS (Control) Amendment Order, 2018, increasing the deadline of replacement of the private dealers by another year (March 15, 2019).
“As it appears, the licensing authorities are yet to initiate suitable action to implement this order within the specified deadline,” he further said.
The DMs were asked to impress upon all licensing authorities working in their district to discharge their duties and responsibilities with utmost sincerity. They have been asked to ensure that all the private dealers are replaced by the institutional dealers by March 15 under intimation to the Commission.
Five ADMs (Bhubaneswar, Rourkela, Sambalpur, Cuttack and Berhampur) and all sub-collectors (58) are appointed as Licensing Authority. Due to lack of proper supervision and monitoring, the fair price shop dealers are not implementing rules like displaying the list of ration cards attached to the shop, opening and closing time of the shops, details of the grievance redressal authority and price of commodities.
The Commission requested the Collectors to issue necessary instruction to the sub-collectors and ADMs to conduct surprise inspections of fair price shops within their jurisdiction and take suitable action in the larger interest of the public.
PNN