New Delhi, Apr 4 (PTI) Delhi Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena has approved the formation of vigilance committees at the Fair Price Shop level, but flagged the "inordinate" delay of eight years in constitution of these panels aimed at ensuring transparency and effectiveness of the PDS, a Raj Niwas official said Tuesday.

The official said the constitution of these committees, aimed at ensuring that ration reaches the targeted beneficiaries and not get siphoned off, was kept pending by the AAP government ever since it came to power.

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"The Delhi LG, while agreeing to the proposal to constitute these committees that was sent on March 27, has expressed grave concern that the proposal has inordinately taken this long," the official said.

After much delay, the proposal was first initiated by the Food & Supplies Department in 2017 and was put up for approval of Delhi Food and Civil Supplies Minister Imran Hussain on 8 occasions. However, it was returned every time for one reason or another and on a separate occasion, he sat on the file for more than a year before sending it back to the department, the official claimed.

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"The LG in his note to the chief minister has underlined that constitution of these committees that seeks to ensure transparency in PDS which directly affects the common man, has been dealt in a very lackadaisical manner," he added.

There was no immediate reaction from the government.

The Food & Civil Supplies Department had constituted vigilance committees at the state, district and block/circle level in 2014 during President's Rule, but the constitution of the committees at the FPS level on the ground was pending unjustifiably ever since the AAP government came to power in 2015, the official claimed.

The LG in his note on file to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal noted, “Majority of the states like Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Telengana, Goa, Odisha, Tripura, Haryana, Assam have constituted the committees during the years 2016 to 2018, but, Delhi could not set up a Fair Price Shop Level committee in the past eight years -- even from the issue of the TPDS (Control) order in 2015. There has been extreme laxity in processing this proposal.”

He requested the chief minister to advise his ministers to ensure expeditious disposal of important proposals relating to safeguarding the interests of the general public.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)