Chief Secretary takes stock of PDS through FCS&CA

SRINAGAR: Chief Secretary, Atal Dulloo, on friday held meetings of Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs (FCS&CA) Department and Legal Metrology Department regarding their performance and functioning here in the UT.

Those present includes Commissioner Secretary, FCS&CA; Controller, Legal Metrology Department; Director, FCS&CA, Jammu/Kashmir and other concerned officers either physically or virtually from Jammu.

During the meeting, the Chief Secretary took note of the progress made by the Department in automation of their Fair Price Shops (FPS), Aadhar authentication and addition of eligible families besides implementation of one ration card one nation programme.

He also assessed the performance of the Department regarding updation and digitization of ration cards and timely delivery of ration to the consumers at government approved rates.

Dulloo took this occasion to impress upon the department to include Kashmiri Pandits in the NFSA database for extending benefits of different schemes to them. He also directed for completing the registration of e-Shram card holders under PDS as per Apex Court directions.

The Chief Secretary further took note of the transportation of ration for door step delivery to consumers in different parts of the UT.

The Commissioner Secretary, FCS&CA, Zubair Ahmad informed the meeting about the current status of ration distribution and other initiatives taken by the department to make PDS more efficient in the UT.

He said that the Department is providing free and subsidized grains to around 25.11 lakh families comprising of 98.62 lakh beneficiaries. He added that out of these 66.17 lakh beneficiaries covered under NFSA are provided free rations and rest of the 32.44 lakh souls at highly subsidized rates.

It was further revealed that the Department is distributing fortified rice to all the beneficiaries covered under different schemes. The meeting was also apprised that more than a million deletions were made while carrying out the de-duplication exercise and 67000 households added to PDS on shifting to RCMS.

About the digitization of ration cards, Aadhar seeding and automation of FPS, the meeting was apprised that these had already been saturated by the Department. It was further disclosed that 3736 IDs had been created after entering into an MoU with the CSCs for transformation of fair price shops in J&K.

Regarding One Nation One Ration Card policy, the meeting was informed that the facility is available across the UT on 6377 POS devices using which consumers can avail rations from anywhere they prefer. It was given out that 35 lakh portability transactions were made here till now.

While highlighting the future course of action it was disclosed that the Department is envisaging e-KYC of all the beneficiaries under all the schemes which currently stands at 83% for NFSA and 66% for Non-NFSA consumers besides implementing smart PDS and inclusion of PDS left out e-Sharm registrants.

The Controller, Legal Metrology, Majid Khalil Drabu while throwing light on the performance of the Department made out that it enforces provisions of the Legal Metrology Act to regulate weights & measures here by way of their verification/ re-verification besides licencing of dealers, manufacturers and importers of packaged commodities.

Regarding the performance of the Department it was divulged that out of the 75,871 applications the Department has approved 70,158 applications with remaining with the applicants for certain clarifications.

During current financial year, it was given out that 120 verification camps were held across different districts of the UT. It was said that 203 petrol pumps were also verified with calibration of 2407 nozzles during this period.

About generation of revenue from stamping/verification by the Department it was enunciated that an amount of Rs 299 lakhs were collected besides Rs 12.29 lakh on account of user charges from weighbridge crane.

It was further added that the Department this year conducted about 23,193 inspections registering 1206 cases here in the UT. It was further disclosed that inspections of packaged commodities, weigh bridges, LPG cylinders for ensuring accuracy in their weights besides acting on complaints of the customers regarding violations of rules are some of the regular activities carried out by the Department all across J&K.