Reacting to complaints of alleged irregularities, Delhi Food and Civil Supplies Minister Imran Hussain on Monday ordered the Department to stop issuing new ration cards and cancelling old ones.
In his written instructions to the Food and Civil Supplies Commissioner, Mr. Hussain said he had received complaints from MLAs, NGOs and the general public about “several thousand” names of beneficiaries of the public distribution system being cut recently. In addition, he said, several thousand names had been added to the list of beneficiaries in the past two to three months without the due process being followed, including issuing notice, verification of houses, survey and opportunity to be heard.
“It is being alleged that the Food and Civil Supplies Department is not following proper procedure in the process of addition and deletion of names in the ration cards and is acting in arbitrary and mala fide manner,” he wrote, adding that the process of issuing and cancelling cards should be stopped till further orders.
The Minister also said that if there was any urgency to add or delete names in some cases, then the Department will have to take his approval. This development comes after the Cabinet approved the home delivery of rations last week, citing pilferage as one of the reasons to do so. The proposal has been sent to the Lieutenant-Governor for approval. Earlier, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had said that there was a mafia operating the city’s ration shops in connivance with government officials.
The issue also came to light after the alleged attack on Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash by Aam Aadmi Party MLAs during a meeting at Mr. Kejriwal’s residence on the night of February 19-20. While Mr. Prakash said in his police complaint that other issues were discussed during the late night meeting, the AAP claimed that the meeting was called to discuss the problems with the public distribution system.
