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The Koraput district administration swung into action and sent show-cause notices on Friday to two contractual supply agencies following repeated allegations of MDM rice embezzlement at some primary and upper primary schools in the district .
The supply agencies Jeypore-based Sinhal Transports Agency and Sunabeda-based OM Enterprises have been asked to send their replies in connection with the case within a week.
In the letters, the district administration has asked the supply agencies to reveal the real reason for delivering less quantity rice to the schools.
“Give in reply, why there were irregularities in the MDM rice supply. Why was there less quantity of rice in the 50kg rice bags. Elaborate on why your contract should not be terminated,” the letter read.
“On the orders of the Collector, the supply agencies have been sent show-cause notices. There was short supply of MDM rice to various Primary and Upper Primary Schools while other schools have received excess quantity. Overall, the rice distribution is fine. But there have been a bit of irregularities in few cases,” said Ramchandra Nayak, DEO, Koraput.
“Supply agencies are supposed to supply rice after thoroughly weighing the the stocks. Similarly, teachers were also asked to weigh the rice before receiving it because we cannot trust the supply agencies blindfold. So, I request the teachers to weight the rice bags before receiving them,” he added.
Worth mentioning, hundreds of kilos of rice worth lakhs of rupees was found embezzled under the mid-day meal scheme at various schools under Jeypore block in Koraput district, a report said on Tuesday.
OTV visited several schools to verify the truth and found that agents appointed by collectors delivered less quantity of rice to schools than they are supposed to. To make things worse, the school authorities also accepted the rice bags containing less quantity of rice, without weighing it.
Ideally, one gunny bag of rice should weigh 50kg. But, the rice bags weigh only 47-48kg by the time they reach the schools. This clearly shows that huge quantity of rice is being bungled, with no action by the administration.
