Maggots, mites, fungus found in rice stocks at some fair price shops in Mormugao
In a shocking incident, several Fair Price shops (FPSs) in different parts of Mormugao taluka complained of having received extremely poor quality of rice.
Photos and videos of maggots, fungus and mites in rice sacks began surfacing on social media, raising questions on the quality of rice supplied to the FPSs.
The civil supplies department was quick to begin a damage control exercise, with Mormugao Civil Supplies Inspector Sarita Moraskar stating she had spoken to the civil supplies director and requested FPSs not to offer bad quality rice to users but get the stock immediately replaced.
“We have 41 FPSs in Mormugao Taluka and we follow the first in and first out system in our Godown. This issue was brought to our notice by our FPS through a WhatsApp group and I received photos of the bad quality rice that they had received,” said Moraskar.
“I immediately spoke to our godown keeper and also spoke to my director on the issue and he told me to tell all the FPS not to supply that rice to beneficiaries and immediately replace the rice stocks that may be of bad quality.”
“We subsequently asked the FPS who may have received bad quality rice to get the stocks replaced. We have also given similar directions to our godown keeper as well to immediately replace any bad quality rice brought by the FPS,” said Moraskar.
Moraskar said the civil supplies department had some ration cards suspended in February and hence, the FPS did not take much stock which may have led to excess rice stock in their godown.
“This may have caused some rice stock to get spoilt and I agree that some rice stocks have got a little deteriorated but the problem may have occurred this month, which will be immediately resolved.”
“We even spoke to the pest control and realised that pest control is doing their jobs regularly and we have asked them to cross check the stock of rice in our Godown,” said Moraskar.
Moraskar added that the Civil Supplies Director carried out a joint inspection at the Godown in Cortalim.
“We had an inspection team and we did not find such stocks of rice in huge quantity. We even sent our sub-inspectors to the FPSs to personally check for bad quality rice and note it down.”
“We found that around 4-5 FPSs had rice which was bad quality and we have asked them to get the stocks replaced. We feel that only a few quantities of rice may have got affected and the FPSs have also assured us that bad quality rice will not be offered to beneficiaries,” Moraskar added.
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