Thiruvananthapuram: A Vigilance raid has found that officials have failed to ensure quality and quantity in the Onam kits distributed by the Supplyco.
The inspection, Operation Clean Kit, also found that certain items did not have proper packing labels, including the manufacturing date. Also, all the listed items were not found in some kits.
The Vigilance carried out the inspection at 58 packing centres of the Supplyco, Maveli stores and ration shops across the state on Thursday.
Complaints were raised that the Supplyco's Onam kits did not contain items worth Rs 500 as was notified. The price of the items in the kit ranged from Rs 400 to Rs 490.
If the public were to buy the 11 items in the kit from the market, they would not have to spend this much. However, the Supplyco claimed that Rs 500 was only an estimate given for the items.
Price of items in the kit
Items in the kit included one kg each of sugar, jaggery, and broken wheat; 500gm green gram; 500ml coconut oil; 100gm each of chilli powder, turmeric powder, coriander powder and sambar powder; one packet each of pappad and vermicelli.
If these items were bought from the Supplyco outlet, it would only cost up to Rs 357. Even if Rs 20 is given for the cloth bag and Rs 5 for packing charges, the total amount will be only Rs 382.
Even if items of prominent brands are bought from the market, it would cost less than Rs 500.
If the items were bought via e-tender (considering the maximum price of each item), the total bill amount will be up to only Rs 337.18. With the packing charge of Rs 5, it would add up to Rs 342.18.
Only 950gm in 1kg packet of jaggery
The Supplyco had bought jaggery for the Onam kit from an Erode-based company. However, the quantity was found to be less than 1kg and the Supplyco suffered a loss of Rs 77 lakh due to this, as per preliminary estimates.
In the 27,920 kg jaggery distributed in Perumbavoor, 50gm was found to be less in each kit.
The company's name, the packing date or expiry date was not mentioned in the label and this could tarnish the image of Supplyco, Perumbavoor depot manager said in his letter to the authorities.
After similar complaints were received from Thrissur and Ranni, Supplyco took note of the issue.
The company was given an order for 25,77,000 kg jaggery for 15 depots. If 50gm jaggery is cut down from each 1kg packet, the total quantity pilfered would be 1,28,850 kg.
Also, if calculations are done by considering Rs 60 as the price for 1kg jaggery, then the loss would come up to Rs 77,31,000.
Out of the five companies that were awarded the tender, this Erode-based company received the maximum orders.
The MD has instructed to add 50gm jaggery in each kit for now.
The fraud was committed even though a flying squad of five officials and monitoring committee for kit packing have been deployed in each sector under the Supplyco Vigilance officer.
