PDS rice: Multi disciplinary panel formed to inspect PDS Rice in port
Kakinada:A multidisciplinary committee is being formed to check entire rice cargo in the Stella-L Panama ship at the Anchorage Port, where 640 metric tonnes of PDS rice was detected.
This was stated by district collector Shan Mohan here Tuesday. He, along with SP Vikrant Patil, told the media that the committee would include officers from the Customs, Port, Revenue, Civil Supplies and Police departments. “We would ascertain how much PDS rice is stocked in the ship,” he said.
“Boiled rice would be exempted from the search as that is not a PDS commodity meant for ration shops,” they said.
About the bank guarantee given by the exporter of the rice, the collector said, “We would check whether bank guarantee was given to the PDS rice and who sold the rice to the exporter, the bills thereof etc thoroughly.”
He said the PDS rice stocks loaded in the barge and kept in the anchorage jetty would also be checked thoroughly. “The port officer has powers to stop the ship from sailing in the sea.”
Referring to the comments of deputy chief minister Pawan Kalyan during his visit of the port four days back, that the district-level officers failed in curbing the illegal movement of PDS rice, Shan Mohan said, “True, we should have strengthened the check posts to detect such illegal activities.”
The collector said a workshop has been conducted for the police, revenue and civil supplies personnel on how to detect the PDS rice from other rice, and the need to verify the waybills etc in the export of or carrying the rice from one place to another place.
“The check posts in the port would be run round-the-clock with three shifts, by deploying additional staff. Officials would inspect the warehouses too, to where the cargo is moved. We urge the people to inform us about the illegalities in PDS rice movement etc on mobile number 7993332244,” he said.
