The officials made the stunning disclosure at a meeting convened by Minister of State Babasaheb Dhabekar, who is also the District Guardian Minister, here recently. J M Phatak, the secretary of the State FCS Department, was also present at the meeting held at the collectorate.

Last month, Dhabekar had convened meetings of the FCS officials at the tehsil-level. However, it is gathered that the officials present at these meeting could not furnish the details of the grain supply position as sought by the minister. With a view to getting the exact details, the district-level meeting was called.

The district administrations, after receiving reports fromall 13 tehsils in this district, places the order for the supply of grain - to be distributed through the fair price (FP) shops - to the State Government.

When the minister repeatedly asked the officials to give the details of the demand and supply ratio, the officials admitted that the grain supply was less than the demand. As a result, the grain demand of the people in any of the tehsils was not fulfilled any month, they added.

It was informed at the meeting that as per the 1991 census, the population of the district was 24,90,760. There were 1,315 FP shops, of which, 1,280 were operating. Seventeen kerosene dealers, 15 LPG distributors and 11 sugar nominees were there in the district.

It was also informed that 4,54,000 families had ration cards and the total number of ration card units was 52,15,794.

In January, 1998, the district administration had demanded 525 MT of rice for the people below the poverty line (BPL) and 795 MT for the people above the poverty line (APL).

In fact, a total of1,100 MT of rice was supplied. In the same month, a total of 3,500 MT of wheat was sanctioned but the administration did not lift 2,700 MT of the sanctioned wheat.

Similarly, the difference was observed in the actual demand placed for the BPL and APL categories, sanctioned grain and the grain lifted by the district administration from February to May, 1998.

The FCS officials informed that although the State Government had sanctioned 3,600 MT of wheat as against the demand for 3,252 MT, actually 1,900 MT of wheat was supplied.

In April, the administration had demanded 1,410 and 1,940 MT of wheat for the APL and BPL categories, respectively. However, the State Government supplied 900 and 1,500 MT of wheat, respectively.

To top it all, the administration lifted only 383.69 MT of wheat while the balance of 2,016.31 went back to the government.