New Delhi: On Thursday, Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC) president Ajay Maken demanded the resignation of chief minister Arvind Kejriwal. He also sought a CBI inquiry into the irregularities and corruption in the public distribution system as pointed out in the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, which was tabled in the state Assembly on April 3.
Addressing a press conference, Mr Maken said the corruption and irregularities in the ration distribution system was taking place under the nose of the Kejriwal government, which was now trying to fool the people with misinformation to divert their attention. He said that as head of the government, Mr Kejriwal cannot absolve himself from the responsibility of corruption as pointed out by the CAG in the ration distribution.
Besides the DPCC president, others present at the press conference include former Delhi food and civil supplies minister HaroonYusuf, senior leader Chattar Singh, and chief media co-ordinator Mehndi Majid.
Mr Maken said that despite the officers pointing out the scams surrounding the ration distribution system in Delhi in five important circulars, which were put on the public domain, the Kejriwal government and the chairpersons of the circle and district level vigilance committees, who are local area MLAs and MPs respectively, did not act on them.
Mr Maken said it was mandatory that each ration card holder should get an alert on their respective mobile phones. But in 2,453 cases, the mobile number of the ration shop owners was found.
The National Food Security Act provides a grievance redressal mechanism, including toll free call centres. Mr Maken said that between August 2013 and March 2017, the total number of calls received were 15,81,542 and only 6,61,523 of these were answered. This was due to shortage of manpower at these centres. He added that in 412 ration cards, a single name was repeated several times.
Mr Maken pointed out that ration is meant for the poor. However, in 1,000 cases ration cards had entries of names of servants as family members.
“Fair price shop license holders and those families, who have financial capacity to employ servants, are allowed NFS benefits,” he said.
