Over Rs 90 lakh saved in a month in Surat after NFSA expose

SURAT: A drastic drop in the sale of subsidized food grains sold under National Food Security Act (NFSA) has been noticed in the month of January in the city after an RTI activist exposed the pilfering racket being run on stolen biometric data.
As per the sales figures of January, Surat district registered 21,469 less transactions compared to 4.30 lakh in December 2017.

This meant 2.70 lakh kg wheat, 1.81 lakh kg rice and 1.35 lakh litres of kerosene were not sold, indicating that earlier they were being gobbled up by racketeers.

“There is a drop in the sale of food grains and kerosene after the racket was exposed in Surat. However, there is not much change in other parts of the state. This shows that the sales have dropped here after fake transactions were stopped,” an RTI activist Ajay Jangid said.

He approached the city police commissionerate and district collectorate in 2017, informing them about the racket. An inquiry was initiated, but concrete action started only when purchases by top politicians and businessmen were exposed on social media.

“Over Rs 90 lakh of public money spent on subsidy of food grains and kerosene has been saved in just one month due to drop in the sales. The sales have dropped since fake transactions have stopped. Further strict actions are required to be taken to save public money,” he added.

The accused were using stolen biometric data to carry out transactions under NFSA. It was sold to the racketeers by an agency hired by government to collect data. So far police have arrested 13 accused in eight complaints about NFSA racket.