BENGALURU: Lakshmi Kanthamma is 87 and lives alone. She can barely walk or hear, and remains largely confined to her bed in a small dingy room in Kala Halli, Halasuru. Sometimes she crawls on her hands out of her bed and is mentally stable only at times. This octogenarian was recently appointed Vigilance Committee member of a fair price shop at Kala Halli near Halasuru, in what can be deemed only as mockery of an attempt to streamline the Public Distribution System.
The Food and Civil Supplies department randomly selected three women of Kala Halli out of 60 cardholders here to constitute a vigilance team for Angala Parameshwari fair price shop, a mandatory condition for all ration shops as per the gazette notification issued on May 31, 2016. There are 1,400 such outlets in Bengaluru and all of them must have such a team to look into grievances of the public and supervise distribution.
“Four months ago, two officials of the department came and told her to sign a form and she did so. On August 24, a notice was put at her doorstep saying she had been made a vigilance member and must conduct meetings on the 7th of every month,” says her neighbour K Parmila. Parmila, 60, out of sheer sympathy, feeds her thrice a day while Kanthamma’s houseowner has waived off her monthly rent.
So how did this octogenarian, bedridden woman become a vigilance member? “They told me to put a signature on a form and I did it,” was Kanthamma’s response when Parmila asked her about it.
Ironically, Kanthamma has not even been able to get her measly monthly rations from the fair price shop ever since the capturing of biometric thumb impression (every three months) was made a prerequisite for BPL cardholders buying provisions.
P Kalidas Reddy, an RTI activist from the area, indignantly asks, “I have not even been able to take her to the ration shop for provisions due to her condition and cannot do anything on my own. How can they even think of appointing her in a supervisory role?” The other two women made vigilance members too have no clue about their role, the activist adds.
Reddy shot off a letter to the Principal Secretary, Food and Supplies Department, on September 6, drawing his attention to the unfairness meted out to Kanthamma.
“Till date I have not received any response,” he says. Area Food Inspector B K Venkatesh said he was aware of it but was helpless since the Commissioner’s office appointed her. Not a single meeting has been held here in the last four months.