NEW DELHI: Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday ordered suspension of Food Commissioner Mohanjeet Saingh after an inspection by food minister Imran Hussain found that several quintals of ration was allegedly missing from a ration shop in Nangloi.
Incidentally, Singh did not share best of the ties with the ruling Aam Aadmi Party. In July, the food commissioner had drawn the government’s ire when three minor girls allegedly died due to starvation at Mandawali. The girls and their parents did not possess ration cards. The AAP government had then claimed that the missing ration cards were a ‘conspiracy’ by the food commissioner to deny food to
the poor.
“When we reached the shop on Tuesday late evening, it was closed... This is just one such shop that we checked. We found out a big scam that is going on. I have sent my report to the chief minister and he has sent the file to the Lieutenant Governor for suspension of the Food Commissioner,” Hussain said. As per the minister’s report, 152 quintal of wheat and 38 quintal of rice was missing from the shop registered under the name of Shyam Sundar.
“Our government has been insisting for the last two years to implement our door step delivery of ration scheme, but the commissioner has opposed the proposal several times and created hurdles,” Hussain claimed.
Kejriwal promptly took the decision to remove the food commissioner once the consignment of food grains was found missing at the ration shop. “This is very serious. Food of the poorest people is being stolen. Responsibility ought to be fixed at highest levels. I have directed suspension of the Food Commissioner,” he tweeted.
Delhi has about 2,200 fair price shops, which are managed by the Food and Supplies department. Singh and the government first clashed over the E-POS system set up on a pilot basis. A few months into the project, the AAP government alleged that the machines were working only intermittently. Subsequently, the E-POS was temporarily put on hold in April, and it has not been restored since then.
But, Singh claimed that his department had been recommending the restoration of the E-POS system for the last six months, but the requests fell on deaf ears. “The system could have checked such diversion (of food grain) E-POS was able to stop pilferage of food worth crores. We were able to save more than 30 per cent of our supplies when the system was working,” Singh said.