Tirupati: Godowns mint money with help from officials

Tirupati: The state government’s claims that the state coffers are empty with meagre financial support from the Centre, but all is well for the State Civil Supplies Corporation, which  depends on private godowns to stock their rice supplies by shelling out huge amounts instead of Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC) godowns by  not utilising them properly.

The Chittoor district civil supplies corporation is a glaring example of misusing the funds as well as filling the coffers of the private godowns by stocking the procured rice which is meant to be distributed under the Public Distribution System (PDS).

After Telugu Desam came into power two years ago, the private godown Jagadeesh Warehousing Corporation located at Yerpedu on the Tirupati-Srikalahasti Road, which  also reportedly belongs to ruling party MLC G. Muddukrishnama Naidu has minted money by the blessings of the district civil supplies department.

But, the Central government run CWC godowns, which were established three decades ago near Renigunta airport have become idle with no transaction activities. Also the daily wage labourers of around 105 members were struggling for their livelihood following the apathy being shown by the district civil supplies department.

The CWC which has 20,000mt tonnes storage capacity has rented out 5,000 mt tonnes capacity godowns to the civil supplies corporation for a six month period. This period is being extended from time to time.

The civil supplies corporation has to pay Rs 24 lakh as rent for the said period and it can make as many as transactions i.e., receiving and disbursing rice stocks meant for PDS distribution in the district.

The Chittoor district has 26 mandal points, from where the requirement of 17,500 mt tonnes of rice per month will be distributed.

The rice procured by civil supplies corporation from millers belonging to coastal districts will reach these godowns through railway wagons and each rake (42 wagons) consists of 2,500 mt tonnes of rice.

The contracting agency which is being selected through tenders every two years will do the activity of unloading the received stock of rice from wagons to godowns and to supply by trucks from there to PDS points.

But the district civil supplies corporation, which has to save the money of the government, for various reasons are neglecting the CWC and transacting activities from the private godowns. The corporation has taken 20,000 mt tonnes of space from the private godowns at Yerpedu.

For example during the last six months i.e., from December 2015 to June 2016 the private godowns at Yerpedu have received rice stocks of 1.82 lakh mt tonnes where as the CWC godowns at Renigunta have received only 13,019 mt tonnes of rice stocks.

The figure itself reflects the undue favour being done to private godowns by the civil supplies corporation. Not only maintaining the stocks but also in the issuing of the stocks to PDS points from godowns there is a lot of apathy being meted out to CWC.

The civil supplies corporation has lifted out 84,638 mt tonnes of rice stocks from the private godowns where as only 15,136 mt tonnes of rice stocks were lifted out from CWC godowns during the same period.

Despite the corporation having facility of stocking as much as quantity of rice in the CWC godowns, whenever the stocks were cleared for which the corporation  is paying the total amount of Rs 24 lakhs per six months whether it may do the transactions or not, but for various unknown reasons it is not doing so which is leading to unrest among the labourers of CWC, who don’t have work for several days in the month.

When this correspondent contacted the state civil supplies corporation district manager E.N. Jayaramulu strongly defended his action of depending on private godowns instead of CWC because of labour problems. It is because of non co-operation from the labourers at CWC they preferred private godowns.