Silvester D’Souza
Daijiworld Media Network – Kundapur
Kundapur, Jul 10: "Until the policies of the government reach the common man, the problems in the current system will not be known. In this regard, the facilities for the people should be provided through the Panchayat raj system," said advisor of Food and civil supplies minister B M Harish Gowda.
He addressed the gathering during the ration card distribution programme held at Taluk panchayat auditorium on Tuesday July 9.
"Due to the carelessness of the earlier government and its officials, we are facing several problems in the ration card system which we will try to solve within a month, he said.
He also added "in allotting the ration cards, especially to certain people, the gram panchayat will need more information and hence they should co-operate and lend their support," he said.
Taluk panchayat members, zilla panchayat and gram panchayat members who were present briefed the advisor on the problems they face while allotting ration cards.
In response, to them, he said "old rules can be relaxed. If the applicant belongs to a well off house, it does not mean that we need to allot an APL card to him, instead decisions should be made by the gram panchayat by taking the applicants annual income into consideration. When all officials join together and work sincerely, all these problems will be sorted out," he added.
"In the next couple of months, all problems related to ration cards will be sorted out. Our departments first preference is to issue ration card cards to those who does not have," he stated.
"In the district, altogether 26,000 ration cards have been cancelled. Kundapur taluk has 7,650 cards which are cancelled. In this regard, we have posted advertisements and reminders in the newspapers several times and only 2,000 application have been recieved until date," said the district commissioner Dr M T Reju.
Further he said that the problems of people who do not have the ration card will be sorted out and steps will be taken to issue a new card.
"In the next one month, 90% of the problems will be sorted out," he assured.
The much needed facility of the gram panchayat, is one computer with broadband along with an operator. This will be provided to Byndoor, Udupi and Chikmagalur gram panchayat. The money will be taken from the MP fund," said MP K Jayaprakash Heggde.
Kundapur MLA Halady Srinivas Shetty, Byndoor MLA Gopal Poojary, taluk panchayat president Deepika Shetty, Kundapur taluk panchayat CEO Gopal Shetty, Yogeshwar, tashildar Gayatri Nayak, taluk CEO Gopal Shetty, Udupi zp deputy secretary D Pranesh Rao among others were present.