The Andhra Pradesh government has found itself in the middle of a controversy after it surfaced that oil packets supplied by the Guntur district administration to victims of the Krishna flood in Kolluru mandal had expired on 16 July.
Staging a protest, local women who had received the packets, demanded that the district administration take back the oil packets and give them a fresh batch. “We will fall sick if we use this (expired oil). We are already suffering due to the flood. The district administration should visit us and take steps to rectify this mistake,” one of the women told a local media outlet.
Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader and former Minister Nara Lokesh took to Twitter to criticise the YSRCP government, stating that it did not take the issue seriously. “They are playing with the health of the public by supplying stale oil packets to flood victims,” he tweeted, alleging corruption in the supply of the oil packets.
Meanwhile, district authorities took note of the issue and said that the fiasco was due to the fault of workers who distributed the packets. A probe was also initiated
“Our godown in-charge had kept some packets aside after noticing that the stocks belonged to expired batch. But, the workers mixed them with valid stocks. We are in the process of taking back all the packets of oil that have crossed the expiry date. We will identify the suppliers and take action,” District civil supplies corporation manager Lakshma Reddy told Mumbai Mirror.
Earlier this month, 34 villages of Krishna district and 53 villages of Guntur district were affected by floods and over 8,000 people were moved to 56 relief camps as water entered villages on the banks of the swollen Krishna river. According to a preliminary report, crops in over 5,511 hectares and horticulture crops in over 2,052 hectares were affected by the floods.
(The story was originally published in The News Minute and has been reposted with permission.)
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