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NCP protests against BPL card ‘irregularities’

CUTTACK: The Cuttack unit of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) took the district police administration unaware on Monday when over hundreds of party activists stormed into the district Collector’s office in the morning protesting against what they called “irregularities” in the BPL card distribution in the district.

Led by the city unit leader Suvendu Mohanty, the NCP activists had gathered at the Collectorate to gherao the Collector. But soon the activists pushed their way into the Collector’s cabin putting the local police in an embarrassing position.

The newly appointed Collector Kishore Kumar Mohanty who took charge only on Sunday, however, welcomed a delegate of the party for a discussion.

The party alleged that BPL card distribution in the entire district has been stopped since January 2004.

During this period at least more than 40,000 families have been registered under below poverty line (BPL) but they have not received the BPL cards, allege Mohanty.

The city NCP corporator Sheshadev Nanda participating in the discussion told the Collector that the public distribution system (PDS) in the city has gone wayward.

The residents are getting the PDS items regularly whereas the poor slum dwellers are deprived of any poverty alleviation programme for lack of BPL card, he added.

While only some 17,000 persons were identified to be under below poverty line in January 2004, the number increased to some 55,000 by the end of 2004.

But since then there has been no survey in the city and the poor people continue to suffer, the NCP leaders alleged.

The Collector however, taking note of all the allegations of the NCP leaders assured that there would be no further deviation of BPL card distribution.

He also asserted that if any irregularities come to the notice of the district administration, they would soon be rectified by initiating action against the erring official.

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