Chennai, Sept 30 (BPNS)
The Tamil Nadu government has drawn flak after the Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation (TNCSC) engaged three substandard companies to supply food materials to PDS shops. These three companies, according to a Right to Information (RTI) document were in the dock over supplying sub-standard materials in the gift hampers in the Pongal kits of 2022.
The three companies, Arunachala Impex, Integrated Service Point, and Natural Food Commercials were served show cause notice by the TNCSC after complaints were raised on the poor quality of materials supplied in the gift hampers during Pongal.
An RTI activist Yuvaraj Ramalingam, who obtained the data on the supply of materials to the PDS shops, while speaking to media persons said that even after the Chief Minister had promised stringent action against the companies that had supplied poor quality materials in Pongal gift hampers, nothing happened. He said that six companies were pulled up for poor quality materials being supplied in the gift hampers but three companies, Arunachala Impex, Integrated Service Point, and Natural Food Commercials were again engaged by the TNCSC for supplying materials to the PDS shops in the state.
According to information available through RTI, these three companies were roped in for supplying Palm oil and Dal through tender between March and September 2022.
The information reveals that the TNCSC procured four crores one litre pouches of palm oil and one lakh tonnes of dal from these three firms.
Consumer activist, R. Pandyan from Salem while speaking to BPNS said, “ The state government has given orders for four crores one litre pouches of palm oil and one lakh tonnes of dal to companies which ought to have been blacklisted long back. People had complained about the poor quality of materials supplied in the Pongal hampers and out of these six companies that were responsible for supplying poor quality materials three have again supplied materials to PDS shops. Stringent action has to be taken in this matter.”
It may be noted that the state government had spent a whopping 1163 crore rupees for supplying Pongal gift hampers. These gift hampers constitute 21 food items including Rava, jaggery, and wheat, and were supplied to 2.15 crore families in the state of Tamil Nadu.
