Kerosene smuggling rampant

     Raipur, July 2, 2009: Despite tall claims the Food and Civil Supply Department has failed utterly to check smuggling of the essential commodities of the Targetted Public Distribution System.

     From many parts of the state, irregularities in the procurement of paddy and wrong distribution of PDS commodities have been pouring in.

     More painful is the smuggling of kerosene in the rural sector and in bulk getting into the hand of rich people when rural sector is reeling under a severe load shedding condition and the shortage of kerosene was making the life worse.

     Kerosene has been allotted for poor, but landing in the house of rich people, due to lack of monitoring, many said.

     Initially kerosene was used in urban areas to run vehicle and many such trucks and other vehicles had been seized in the capital city and lack of stringent action has now helped them reaching the far off places.

     In the latest case, three vehicles were seized by Baikunthpur police yesterday, which were running in kerosene, officials said.

     Considering the reports that vehicles were running in Kerosene in Korea district, a random checking was conducted by Revenue and Food Departments jointly on eleven vehicles and three of them were found running in Kerosene, they said.

     The vehicles had been handed over to the Baikunthpur Police and actions were being initiated against the owners of those vehicles, officials said.