In a bid to curb illegal sale of kerosene meant for the poor, the Panchmahals district administration has decided to inform the owners of Public Distribution System shops and two persons chosen from each village through SMSes about the arrival of monthly stock and the quantity.
Panchmahals collector Milind Torwane said the initiative has been launched on the lines of a similar service started in Chhattisgarh. “We distribute kerosene in two phases every month. During the first phase, 60 per cent of the stock is cleared while the rest 40 per cent is cleared in the next phase. We have 25-30 tankers delivering kerosene every month to each taluka of Panchmahals district. While we give publish the information on stocks of kerosene in every newspaper, we have also started sending out SMSes to all PDS outlets across the district. Before the distribution begins, we also inform two representatives from each village about the timings of the arrival of kerosene stock and its quantity in each truck on a given day,” District Supply Officer B N Ghatiya said.
District supply officials said around 800 distributors and 1,600 persons from all villages would get these text messages. “The two representatives from a village and PDS outlet owners are supposed to inform the villagers about the arrival of stock,” said Ghatiya, adding this would also curb delays in distribution.
“We have about 4 lakh people in the district buying kerosene from PDS outlets,” he said. District officials said similar initiatives were taken in Maharasthra also.