GS Asgotra
Early Times Report
Jammu, Dec 14: The Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution (CAPD) department has thrown blame on common masses, for the failure of department to complete the surveys for implementation of National Food Security Act (NFSA) in Jammu province.
According to sources, the CAPD department has published a notice, completely blaming the common masses for the failure of department to complete the surveys. Sources informed that for the implementation of National Food Security Act 2013 in Jammu and Kashmir, the department had reportedly decided to complete the surveys.
In March this year CAPD department had appealed the people to fill up the declaration forms in order to avail benefits under National Food Security Act, but the notice issued by department is more an intimidation rather than appeal to general public.
The order read as, "In order to implement the NFSA 2013, the department of CAPD have already initiated door to door survey to identify various category of households viz-a-viz priority households, APL households etc. In this regard, NFSA survey forms were printed and circulated among general public/rationees through CAPD staff/ration dealers.
Surprisingly, the notice further read as "Even after the lapse of considerable period the said survey (household survey) does not seems to have been completed due to poor response/cooperation from general public as reported by concerned Assistant Directors".
The language used in the notice is not an appeal but more an intimidation to common masses for filling the forms and that too in seven days. "Keeping in view the above facts, this department vide this notice provide a last opportunity to the general public/rationees to fill the NFSA survey forms within seven days, if not done earlier, from the publication of this notice and submit the same to the office of Assistant Director of their respective district, so that the survey undertaken by CAPD department for identification of eligible households could be completed in time".
Lambasting the department, sources within department said, it was only to put onus of department's failure on public. "The gullible masses, who falls under the category of APL, BPL are mostly illiterate and how will the read that notice? , it is a million dollar question. Moreover, huge number of population is residing in far flung areas, where there is no reach of these newspapers, how will these people will able to submit survey forms within seven days", he said, adding that it was merely a futile exercise of department.
Moreover, few months back, the Director of CAPD, Kashmir division had raised objections over the implementation of NFSA 2013 in J&K. "Director CAPD Kashmir Bilal Ahmed Bhat, in an interview, had reportedly said that execution of Food Security Bill would only cut subsidized ration to people living Below Poverty Line. If the bill is applied in J&K, the people falling in BPL will not get subsidized ration which could further worsen the situation.
Director Kashmir has different opinion over the implementation of Act and had also said that there were no plans to implement the Act and Jammu Director is saying something else, which raises the question mark over the intension of Jammu counterparts", he said.
He further alleged that a large number of masses were illiterate and how would they fill the forms, if same were distributed among them, and no one from department had gone to collect the forms. |
