Andhra cabinet to scrap door-delivery of essential commodities, fair price shops to open from June 1

The Andhra Pradesh cabinet, chaired by chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, on Tuesday announced the decision to do away with the method of door-delivery of essential commodities to the consumers under public distribution system and re-introduce fair price shops to distribute the commodities from June 1.

- Srinivasa Rao Apparasu

HYDERABAD:

After the cabinet meeting, state civil supplies minister Nadendla Manohar said that it was decided to discontinue the current practice of delivering ration commodities through Mobile Dispensing Units (MDUs) which was introduced during the previous YS Jagan Mohan Reddy government.

"The decision was taken after obtaining the feedback from the consumers through a survey. It was revealed that 25% of ration card-holders did not receive essential commodities, and another 26% consumers complained that MDU operators were charging higher prices," he told reporters.

He said there were other operational shortcomings in the distribution of commodities through MDUs, such as diversion of goods, inability to cover all the areas and lack of manpower to run MDUs.