Hitting the road saves Telangana a bagful of cash: Civil supplies department

Hyderabad: The civil supplies department has decided to bring nine crore gunny bags from Kolkata by road instead of by the railways. This will result in savings of Rs 10 crore a year.

Civil supplies commissioner C.V. Anand has initiated measures to procure gunny bags at low prices to take up paddy procurement in the state for kharif and rabi seasons. He said transportation by road will result in big savings for the government besides checking delays.

He also ordered the recovery of gunny bags worth Rs 66 crore lying with rice millers since years. The government provides gunny bags to rice millers for sending the procured paddy for milling.

“Rail transport involves a lot of delays, and loading and unloading almost eight times, before it reaches its destination. By going for road transport, delays can be cut by seven per cent. Earlier, it used to cost Rs 1,590 to transport a bale (500 gunny bags) by rail. It came down to Rs 1,000-Rs 1,100 per bale resulting in a saving of Rs 1.4 lakh on the transport of 1.5 lakh bales this kharif season,” Mr Anand said.

The department has decided to purchase 4 lakh metric tonnes of rice from millers to meet PDS requirements. It was agreed to purchase at Rs 2,400 per quintal with an understanding that the corporation shall bear the cost of two gunnies costing Rs 106.

As the proposition may cause loss to the corporation, Mr Anand held discussions with the millers again and convinced the millers that  they can use the two gunnies  lying with them under milling accounts, for delivering rice. This has resulted in a saving of Rs 13.27 crore to the government and at the same time the  gunnies lying with the millers will reach the corporation from time to time.

The corporation provides bags to millers for sending the procured paddy for milling. Millers send back the rice after milling in the same bags in the ratio of 2:1 (for every three bags of paddy milled, two bags of rice is produced).  The millers were keeping one bag out of three with them though it was mandatory to send them back to the corporation. This had resulted in bags worth Rs 66 crore accumulating with millers.