Civil Supplies Corporation chairman M. Srinivas Reddy warned officials of stringent action if they fail to make timely payment to farmers after procuring food grains from them.
He wondered how reports were coming from districts over the delay in payments in spite of the government sanctioning ₹20,000 crore for procurement of food grains, primarily paddy, from the farmers. This is because of the negligence of certain field-level officials going by the reports coming from the districts, he said directing the officials concerned to make payments within two days failing which stringent action would be initiated against them if found negligent in discharging their duties.
The Civil Supplies Corporation chairman conducted a detailed review on the procurement operations with senior officials from procurement, finance and vigilance wings of the corporation on Thursday.
He said the corporation had constituted teams of vigilance officials to monitor the procurement process. These teams would check district-wise procurement of food grains, the data entered into the online procurement management system and variation if any between the two.
Officials should accordingly ensure that correct data is entered into the OPMS and bring to the notice of the concerned in case of problems encountered in the process. Details of procurement from farmers, dispatching the procured grain to mills along with acknowledgement by the millers and other aspects should also be duly entered into the online system, he said.
He wanted the officials concerned to focus on procurement operations in the districts from where there are complaints relating to delayed payments to farmers.
At a separate meeting with the ration dealers, he said the government had released ₹28 crore towards the commission of dealers which was pending for some time. Informing that the price of gunny bags had been enhanced by ₹3 each from ₹18 to ₹21, he said keeping this in view, dealers should duly surrender all the bags to the corporation.
