VIJAYAWADA: Despite it being a burden on the government, quality rice will be supplied to the poor and downtrodden, and a mechanism to ensure the same has been developed at village-levels across the State, said Minister for Civil Supplies Kodali Sri Venkateswara Rao (Nani).
The minister participated as chief guest in a National Consumers Day programme organised by Price Monitoring, Consumer Affairs and Food and Civil Supplies Departments at Tummalapalli Kalashektram in the city here on Friday. “The government is taking necessary steps to offer quality service to the public by maintaining standard weighs, apart from preventing the adulteration of food items.”
The minister further said 2019 amendments to the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 strengthened the Act. “Chief Minister has given clear instructions to Civil Supplies to provide quality food items to the public through PDS,” Rao added.
Civil Supplies commissioner Kona Sasidhar said a majority of the consumers were unaware of the Act, which was the reason they did not lodge complaints even though they were facing problems. He added the consumers could lodge complaints concerning material worth below `10 crore with state level forums, while for those above `10 crore they could approach national level forums.