A Congress MLA stated on Monday that the Jharkhand authorities spent Rs 250 crore as hire on digital level of sale (EPoS) machines for distribution of meals grains, whereas it may have purchased them for Rs 78 crore.
Over the 5 years – August, 2016 to August 2021 – the state paid a mean of Rs 4 crore each month for the machines, that are used for biometric authentication of beneficiaries beneath the National Food Security Act.
The expenditure was revealed on Monday when Congress MLA Pradeep Yadav questioned his personal celebration colleague Rameshwar Oraon, who holds the Food, Public Distribution and Civil Supplies portfolio, in the course of the winter session of the state meeting.
“I have come to this House raising an important question… the government has spent more than Rs 250 crore on EPOS machines in the last five years… while the per unit cost of this machine is Rs 24,910, and the food department has reported an amount of 78.67 crores. Could have been Rs,” Yadav stated.
Yadav additionally questioned the “huge” curiosity charged on hire. “Someone buys a car at 6-7% interest rate, but the interest rate here is huge… There should be a different option for this problem. It is a moot,” he stated. Why is the state charged Rs 22 crore per 12 months for upkeep when the identical “could have been done for less than Rs 10 crore annually”.
Minister Rameshwar Oraon responded by saying that the machines had been employed by the earlier authorities led by BJP chief Raghubar Das, and from August 2021, as per the settlement, the federal government now owned the EPOS machines and paid solely upkeep expenses. does. However, he denied that the upkeep charge was “waste”.
“Now the query is why Rs 22 crore and never Rs 10 crore. The downside is that the servicing must be executed by a single vendor. Besides, if we had gone for servicing and shopping for new machines, it could have price the federal government greater than Rs 100 crore… and on the advice of the technical committee we did not purchase any extra,” Oraon said, adding, “We saved cash.”
Yadav then replied, “The previous government had committed a scam and the department should accept it.”
The EPOS machines had been introduced after the Raghubar Das authorities made it necessary for the beneficiaries to hyperlink their Aadhar card with the ration card. The Right to Food Campaign, a gaggle of non-governmental organizations working for meals safety, nevertheless criticized the transfer, saying that lack of web or technical glitches in entry to meals has led to “starvation deaths”.
,
With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
