TENKASI: Consumers from several areas in the district have been complaining about receiving ration rice infested with weevils (tiny beetles with elongated snouts), and on Thursday, the tragedy struck Vadamalaipatti village, again. TNIE met with several women family heads in the village and they lamented that they have been receiving contaminated rice for the last five months.
Ramani Bai, one of the family heads, said, "We are a three-member family and have been depending solely on ration rice for many years now. I am given 35 kg of rice from the public distribution system (PDS) shop every month. However, the rice provided in the past few months has been infested with weevils. As we cannot afford the Rs 40 to Rs 60 per kg rice at private stores, I have been winnowing and washing the contaminated rice before cooking it lately."
Ramini brought out the provisions she received in March and April and weevils were running amok inside the sacks. Her neighbour Pappa said she would leave the rice out in the sun for several hours to kill the weevils and get rid of a musty smell. Another woman said her two children had taken ill often after eating the contaminated rice.
"We have no other option but to eat this rice. Before cooking, we wash it nearly 10 times. Whenever the villagers question the shop staff about the sub-standard provision quality, they say they are just distributing whatever they receive from the civil supplies godown," the women said.
S Thabenthiran, who filed a complaint about the infested rice on the PDS portal on Thursday, said he has forgotten the last time he received good-quality rice. "There are six members in my family. All of us have been eating contaminated rice in recent months," he added.
Apart from Vadamalaipatti, the residents of Ayyanarkulam, Shengottai, Sankarankovil, Kadayam, Kurinjakulam, Kalathimadam, and Sivagiri have been receiving contaminated rice. A few of them even circulated photos of the inferior-quality provisions through social media platforms. Ramasamy of Nallur near Alangulam said he was feeding the ration rice to his cattle after cooking or grinding it as the provision he was receiving was not fit to be eaten by humans.
When contacted by TNIE, District Supply Officer Sudha blamed the staff at PDS shops for the crisis.
"They are not following the 'first-in first-out method during rice distribution, due to which, the older stocks of rice are getting infested with weevils. The personal assistant of the food minister informed me about the issue in Vadamalaipatti. We immediately replaced the rice stock at that ration shop. We have also conducted a meeting with the Shengottai and Sankarankovil Tahsildars in this connection. The regional manager of Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation has also been informed about such incidents," she said.
'Mills push distributed rice back into PDS system'
The staff from a ration shop, on the condition of anonymity, said the rice mills, in collusion with higher officials, are collecting unused PDS rice from consumers through brokers and re-injecting the same stock back into the PDS system.
"About 22 mills have licenses to mill the state-purchased paddy in Tenkasi district. They sell most of the paddy they receive from the government to other mills. As they inject the already-distributed rice again and again into the PDS system, the rice gets contaminated. The truth will come out if the state government conducts a detailed inquiry into it," they said.
Sudha refuted this claim and said she was holding inspections at the licensed rice mills. Meanwhile, J Radhakrishnan, Additional Chief Secretary, Cooperation, Food and Consumer Protection, said he would instruct ADGP A Arun (Civil Supplies CID) to look into the matter.