Team Herald
MARGAO: Slamming the Civil Supplies officials for denying reports on maggot-infested food grains at the fair price shops, the All Goa Fair Price Shops Association on Thursday claimed that the rice is not even safe for feeding animals.
Shockingly, on Wednesday too O Heraldo found more cases of rice infested with maggot and fungus at a few shops in Salcete taluka, besides Mormugao.
Speaking to reporters, Gandhi Henriques, General Secretary of All Goa Fair Price Shop Association said that forget humans, this infested rice is not even meant for animals, however, several bags of rice from his fair price shop have been used to feed the pigeons.
Henriques informed that he has received nearly 50 calls these days pertaining to the maggot-infested foodgrains supplied by the Civil Supplies Department from the Cortalim godown.
“The Civil Supplies officials’ claim that rice supplied to all FPS is not infested, is untrue. There is evidence of maggot-infested rice at several fair price shops in Salcete and Mormugao,” said Henriques.
He said, “In order to replace this substandard stock of rice they have to travel back to Cortalim and return to the shop which incurs expenditure including transport cost and payment of the labourers. Who will bear the cost?”
Reacting to the O Heraldo reportage on the issue, Henriques, “Nobody approached me to inquire about the infested foodgrains. Yes, I received a supply of substandard rice infested with maggots and fungus. For the last few days we had to face the wrath of cardholders. I have incurred losses and am forced to feed the pigeons instead of replacing the stock. I disposed of nearly 10 bags of infested rice from the current stock.”
He stated that all the fair prices shop owners across Goa have incurred losses and many are planning to shut their shops.
Curtorim MLA Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco, who has nearly five fair price shops under his Trust, claimed that they are suffering from losses, besides are having a tough time in facing the cardholders due to substandard food grains.
“In April, we received rice of poor quality. We found a few bags of rice infested with maggots and fungus in the stock for the month of May,” he informed.
He said that the issue was brought to the notice of the officials of the department concerned, but the state of affairs is so bad that fair price shops continue to get supply of infested foodgrains.
“Taking into consideration the facts and the prevailing situation, running fair price shops has become a tough task. Cardholders are shying away due to the substandard food grains,” said Reginaldo.
He called upon the government to look into the issue of the fair price shops receiving substandard stock and resolve it immediately.
Citizen Pandhrinant Desai told O Heraldo that hundreds of Goans are completely dependent on the food grains distributed at the fair price shops and hence the government needs to seriously look into the issue.
