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CHANDIGARH: Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee president Capt Amarinder Singh today condemned the selective and discriminatory process of issuing ‘blue (rations) cards’ to the people for subsidised food under National Food Security Act. He said, the blue cards must be issued without any discrimination to all the deserving people living below poverty line and not on the basis of the colour of their turban.
Capt Amarinder has also issued a stern warning to all the officials involved in the process that they can flout the rules at their own risk. “Be fair and just in issuing the blue cards and if you do it merely at the behest of Akalis, let me make it clear to you that you will have to account for it within less than a year”, he warned.
“Why is it mandatory to wear a blue turban to get a blue card?” Capt Amarinder asked the Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal while referring to the partisan means adopted by the government to implement the central government’s scheme for facilitating the supply of highly subsidised food items to the people living below the poverty line in the state.
In a statement issued here today, the former Chief Minister disclosed that the SAD-BJP government had asked all the Deputy Commissioners to allow registration of 2000 blue ration cards for each assembly constituency, as recommended by the ‘halqa incharge’ or the concerned MLA of the ruling alliance. “The halqa incharge/MLAs have virtually been given absolute authority to issue the cards with obvious intent”, he pointed out.
“All rules and regulations have been thrown to the winds as applications on prescribed proforma are collected by the halqa incharge/MLAs and are handed over directly to the DC concerned”, the PCC president revealed, while adding, “no verification is done and selective and pliable officials are called to verifyand cards are being released in bits and pieces”.
The former Chief Minister revealed that after some revenue officials declined to attest the fake application forms the halqa incharge/MLAs have been using fake stamps and signatures to attest the forms themselves, which is totally illegal and unacceptable.
He disclosed that in Samana constituency, the Food Minister, as a “special case” has directed the Food officials to make 5000 such cards.
Capt Amarinder said, the camp offices of the DCs in the State have been surreptitiously converted into extension counters of the Food Department for this purpose, to maintain “secrecy”.
