Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin instructed to blacklist contractors and assured action against officials of Public Distribution Shops for providing substandard Pongal gift hampers in part of the state on Friday.
The Chief Minister made the decision after holding a review meeting with the officials since opposition parties accused the government of providing poor-quality materials in the gift hampers.
A statement from CM's office said, "The government issued procurement norms to ensure the quality of the products and provided prescribed quantity for distributing the gift hampers to the beneficiaries."
"In this backdrop, when the gift hamper was distributed smoothly in many parts of the state but some people in the parts of TN complained to the government that the products were of substandard quality," the release said. Following this, the action was taken against a few contractors.
However, the CM after the meeting with officials from Cooperation and Food Supply departments instructed to take action against the officials responsible for such complaints arise regarding the standard of the products and to blacklist the contractors.
The meeting of the CM comes after AIADMK coordinator O Panneerselvam said that the government wasted over Rs 1,250 crore by distributing substandard Pongal gift hamper.
The distribution of Pongal gift hampers started on January 4. The government identified 2.15 beneficiaries including ration cardholders and people residing in Sri Lankan rehabilitation camps and prepared hampers at the cost of Rs 1,296 crore.
However, within a couple of days, the public started to complain about the substandard quality of rice, jaggery and pepper. A few people also complained that many items were missing from the hamper.