India News | Himachal: BJP Demands Enquiry After Ration Bags Supplied Through Fair Price Shops Found Abandoned in Forest

Shimla, Feb 19 (PTI) Two days after 24 ration bags supplied through fair price shops were found abandoned in a forest area in Hamirpur district, the Himachal Pradesh BJP has written to Union minister Piyush Goyal demanding an enquiry into the matter.

BJP state in-charge Avinash Rai Khanna, in the letter to the Union Minister of Consumer Affairs, said the incident has raised questions on the functioning of the Food and Supplies Department and State Civil Supplies Corporation, the agencies entrusted with the task of supply ration to the fair price shops.

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Some locals had found the abandoned bags of ration, including rice, pulses and wheat, in the Paplah forest area of Bhoranj in Hamirpur on Sunday and informed the gram panchayat and its functionaries.

The locals had said the pile of gunny bags found along with a photograph of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee appeared to be from a fair price ration shop.

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Surendra Kumar, former 'uppradhan' of panchayat Papalah demanded an inquiry into the matter and said that a complaint would be made to Bhoranj MLA Suresh Kumar in this regard.

District Food and Supplies Controller Arvind Sharma had maintained that the waste from the cleaning of the fair price shop of cooperative Sabha Hanoh was thrown in the forest of Paplah.

Sharma had said the seller of the shop, Pankaj Kumar, admitted that grains of rice, wheat and pulses fell down several times while distributing ration to the people. These grains were in the garbage that came out during the cleaning of the shop.

He said a show cause notice has been being issued to the cooperative society. Apart from this, the inspector of Bhoranj block has been instructed to check the stock of all fair-price shops in Bhoranj and submit the report, he added.

(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)