Lambasting the Govt. for its failure to implement National Food Security Act in J&K in letter and spirit besides massive food-grains scams a strong battalion of Panther activists along with hundreds of aggrieved people from BPL category led by Mr. Harsh Dev Singh staged a thunderous protest demonstration in Jammu today. While raising anti- BJP slogans, the infuriated protesters accused the Govt for pushing the poor deserving families to face starvation by wrongfully divesting them of Ration cards besides removing their names from BPL lists. They sought immediate inclusion of their names in the BPL category so as to avail the benefits of the ration facility provided for them under the law.
Speaking to the media, Mr. Harsh Dev Singh accused the govt of criminal negligence in addressing even the basic problems of the poor and under privileged sections of society. He said that people seething with rage in J&K and Jammu province in particular were holding present regime culpable of depriving them of their legitimate rights of food security in view of the local administration turning a blind eye towards the prevalent corrupt practices in the FCS & CA department. “It has been reported that thousands of names of genuine beneficiaries have been deleted from the BPL category thus divesting them of respective Ration cards. They are not been able to get the food grains from the past several months. There are complaints where the poor masses were duped by the Ration depots at almost every town and village in the name of renewal and procuration of their ration cards. Not only were the BPL families deprived of ration facility but several ineligible families were included in the BPL category to allow them to avail the consumption of the grains on subsidized prices which were meant exclusively for the poor. Robbing poor people of their due share of ration to benefit the well off on monetary and extraneous considerations is not only a sin but a large scale scam of food grains”, anguished Harsh said.
Accusing the Food and Civil Supplies department of grossly failing to curb the corrupt malpractices in the Ration Depots mostly in every district, Mr. Harsh Dev Singh divulged that there were reports pouring in from everywhere that several depots were selling under weighed ration to the consumers with no one to take its cognizance. “Not only the poor are cheated but the stock of excess food grains accumulated by such malpractice was sold on ‘black’ to the people brazenly by these depots. People have been persistently complaining that respective TSOs have connived with the retailers to allow this practice of black marketing to flourish. Govt’s apathy towards the grave issue has turned the situation from bad to worse as the people had come on roads to protest for their legitimate rights. Taking a jibe at the ‘One Nation, One Ration card’ programme hyped by the Saffron government, Mr. Harsh Dev Singh wondered whether the scheme had been implemented on the ground or was it a mere ‘Jumla’. “ Portability of the food security benefits seemed to be a distant dream in the country and UT of J&K in particular with the corrupt practices ruling the entire Public Distribution System. Hollow slogans of portability of Ration card holders has only sprinkled the salts on the wounds of those marginalized and poor families whose names have been arbitrarily struck off from the BPL category by the govt in the most glaring and ruthless manner”, Harsh rued.
Calling upon LG of J&K to take cognizance of the food grain scam, he exhorted him to personally intervene into the matter to bail out the poor people from the miseries of hunger and starvation. Facilitate the inclusion of genuine beneficiaries under the BPL category. Depriving poor and indigents of food security will have serious ramifications. Things have to stream lined at the earliest, Harsh warned.
Prominent among those who spoke on the occasion included Mrs. Manju Singh, Rajesh Padgotra, Gagan Pratap Singh, Mrs. Anita Choudhary, Surinder Chouhan, Parshotam Parihar, Kjahur Singh, Ravinder Singh Jamwal, Rohit Sharma, Nirmal Kishore, Gurdeep Singh@Raju, Mrs. Meena Kumari, Mrs. Seema Devi, Mrs. Anju Devi, Mrs. Manju Devi besides others