Open rice sale begins today
Source: Chronicle News Service
Imphal, May 12 2023:
CAF&PD minister L Susindro said that keeping in view of the hardships faced by the people, the state government will carry out open market sale of rice in 10 districts and warned private water tankers against hiking the rate.
Addressing a press meet at Khurai Sajor Leikai residence on Friday, Susindro said that there are rice stocks for four months.
Considering the hardships being endured by the people, the food and civil supply department will carry out open market sale of rice at the rate of Rs 34 per kg in 10 districts.
One family can buy 10 kg of rice under the system, he said and added that the sale will begin from Saturday in Imphal West, Imphal East, Thoubal, Kakching, Bish-nupur, Ukhrul, Senapati, Churachandpur, Kangpokpi and Jiribam districts.
Sale will be carried out at Keishampat Leimajam Leikai community hall for Imphal West, Lamlong Keithel for Imphal East and DHQ markets for other districts.
For this, the department has procured rice for Rs 1 crore.
Apart from the rice, the de-partment is exploring pos-sibility of adding other food items, he said while asking traders in the state to stop hiking price of essential com-modities taking advantage of the situation.
Stating that there are re-ports of mobs robbing corn-modities from goods trucks along the national highway 2 in Kangpokpi area, the min-ister strongly condemned the act and asked the mob to stop such illegal acts immediately.
He further confided that the ministry of civil aviation has agreed to the proposal for refueling for return journeys of all the flights to Imphal and reserving the Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF) in Imphal for Indian Air Force.
Speaking about the water crisis, the minister informed that efforts are on to supply water from Singda Dam to 10 filling points located in Iroisemba area and appealed to the public to bear with the situation and take their requirement from the filling points.
He also informed that somebody locked the water gate of Thoubal multipurpose dam resulting in acute water shortage in Imphal.
The mat-ter was informed to the secu-rity advisor, who agreed to deploy security personnel in adequate strength to protect the dam, he said and added that once the gate is open, water will reach Imphal River.
Susindro also disclosed that several water tanks from Khuman Lampak water fill-ing station have gone missing and a police complaint has been lodged on the same.
He also expressed concern over the rising cost of water supplied through private wa-ter tankers and urged the operators to refrain from taking undue advantage of the situation while assuring appropriate action against such unreasonable price hike.
Rate for filling a 10,000 litres capacity tanker is only Rs 120 .
However, there are reports of private water tanker selling 1000 litres of water at Rs 1300, which is clear example of taking undue advantage of the sit-uation, he said.
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