Alls not well with ration shops: Survey

BANGALORE: A survey conducted by the Karnataka Chapter of Right to Food Campaign has revealed that ration shops are open for less than three days in a month. The findings of the survey have come out at time when the ration shop owners are claiming that their shops are open throughout the month.Presenting the findings of the survey, K V Ramamurthy, Project coordinator of CIVIC, said that they conducted the survey among 418 people in eight districts in the State. “Out of 418 people, 68 per cent of the people said that ration shops are opened for one to three days in a week, while 19 percent people said it is opened four to eight days, nine per cent said 9 to 15 days and only four per cent of them said that shops are opened between 16 to 25 days in a month,” he explained.The survey report reveals that 26 per cent and six per cent of the people have said that the shop owners’ behaviour is very bad and bad respectively. About the quality of grains provided, 107 have people said it is bad and 26 people said it is very bad. Out of 418 people, 267 people said that they will not get the receipt after buying grains from these shops. Not just this, 45 per cent of the total number of people revealed that the ration shop owners sell the grains in  black market.There are 22,000 ration shops in Karnataka, with around 2,000 shops in Bangalore alone. Each ration shop should have a vigilance committee compromising of seven members, including five ration card holders, one NGO member and the local elected representative. Revealing the details of committee members, Ramamurthy said  only one person accepted that he is aware of the work nature of the committee. None of them ever lodged a complaint with the committee and they are not aware of the food adalat that committee should hold once in a month.  Revealing the status of Bangalore City Vigilance Committee, Ramamurthy said that out of 400 members, they could not get the address of these members and the members who have given addresses were not found in those addresses. However, they found only 33 members. “When we asked whether they   know about the roles and responsibilities, 30 members said they do not know. When asked whether they conduct and attend meetings, only two of them said yes,” he said.