Voting ink to check onion hoarding

Hyderabad: Fed up with agents hired by middlemen and traders standing in queues repeatedly and purchasing the subsidised onions at Rs 20 a kg, the government has begun marking their fingers with indelible ink (voter's ink) to easily identify them.

The onions are sold in the retail market at Rs 60 per kg. The hired hands get Rs 20 per kg for their pains.

The marketing staff at the counters were insisting on Aadhaar or ration cards as ID proof but this failed to check the menace.

The new system, started in Erragadda Rythu Bazaar on Sunday, has been found to be successful in checking repeat buyers and the government has decided to extend the same to other rythu bazaars.

Officials found that some hired workers engaged by middlemen and traders were making repeated purchases by standing in queues every day. This was resulting in genuine consumers being denied their fare share.

“We are asking consumers to produce either their Aadhaar card or ration card as ID proof. Staff at the counters are noting down the card numbers and selling subsidised onions. But due to heavy rush it became difficult for officials to verify these numbers everyday to find out whether the consumers were repeat buyers or not. This was being exploited by middlemen and traders. To overcome this, we started using indelible ink on consumers’ fingers in Erragadda rythu bazaar on an experimental basis. This worked and the rush of repeat buyers came down in a day and the queues were shorter unlike previous days," said minister for marketing T. Harish Rao.

He added that this initiative would be extended to rythu bazaars in Falaknuma and Mehdipatnam and later to the entire state to check repeat buyers.