A ration rice shortage has disrupted supplies at many fair price shops across Pune during Dussehra, leaving ration-card holders to make repeated visits without receiving the grain. The city requires about 3,000 tonnes of rice, but 1,000 tonnes had not reached shops when the issue was reported, according to Pune city foodgrain distribution officer Prashant Khatal.
Residents who went to fair price shops expecting to collect their monthly allocation were reportedly asked to wait because rice had not arrived. The shortage has created particular difficulty for families preparing for the festival, with some customers returning without the staple and disputes being reported between beneficiaries and ration shop operators.
Khatal said the remaining rice supply was expected to reach shops within three to four days. He also said that the full requirement of wheat for Pune city, estimated at about 4,000 tonnes, had been delivered to fair price shops.
The distribution problem has also been affected by technical difficulties in the electronic point-of-sale, or e-POS, machines used at ration shops. According to Khatal, the machines had stopped functioning because of technical problems, further delaying transactions. Distribution resumed over the previous two days, he said.
This has left beneficiaries facing problems at two stages: the physical supply of rice has been incomplete, while the system used to record and process distribution has also experienced interruptions. Where rice has not reached a shop, dealers have been unable to issue the grain even when customers have arrived with their ration cards.
Ganesh Dangi, president of the Pune city ration dealers’ association, said customers were repeatedly visiting shops to ask when rice would be available. Since the grain had not reached several shops, dealers were also unable to complete distribution, he said. The repeated visits and continuing uncertainty have led to arguments at some outlets.
Satish Kale, a ration-card holder quoted in the report, said he had still not received the rice available through his ration entitlement. The disruption comes at a time when households were expecting to collect their supplies before the festival.
The administration’s statement indicates that the wheat allocation has been completed, but the rice distribution will remain uneven until the pending 1,000 tonnes are delivered to the relevant shops. Beneficiaries at affected outlets may therefore have to wait for the promised three-to-four-day delivery period before collection can resume. The foodgrain distribution department has not indicated any separate arrangement in the supplied report for households whose shops have not yet received rice.
