ISLAMABAD: A Senate committee has urged the government to restore subsidy given to the Utility Stores Corporation (USC) to enable it to provide commodities of daily use to the poor on cheap rates, or else close the stores.

“The main purpose of the USC is to provide inexpensive commodities to people, particularly the poor. But the incumbent government has stopped providing subsidy to the corporation. As a result, the stores no longer benefit the poor.

‘‘Besides, quality of items sold in the stores is very low,” observed a Senate functional committee in its meeting on Wednesday. Its chairman Senator Usman Kakar presided over the meeting.

The committee gave six months to the corporation to improve its performance and warned that in case of failure it would consider whether the USC should continue to exist or not.

Mr Kakar told the meeting that the previous government provided subsidy to the USC but the present government had abolished the subsidy. He condemned the government for the ‘apathetic act’.

“Utility Stores are mainly to provide relief to the poor, but even 10 per cent of them are not located in backward areas,” he contended. “Of the 5,500 stores, 3,000 are in Punjab, which do not benefit poor people of backward areas.”

Another issue which had badly affected the USC was corruption, the committee noted and recommended measures to wipe out corruption.

Earlier, Managing Director of the USC, Gulzar Shah, told the committee that a special audit had revealed corruption of millions of rupees in the organisation. Last year, the corporation suffered a loss of Rs 1.4 billion, he said. At present, the government does not provide any subsidy to it.

Those who attended the meeting included Senators Samina Abid, Dr Jehanzeb Jamaldini, Maulana Tanvirul Haq Thanvi, Mir Kabir Ahmed Mohammadshahi, Nisar Mohammad, Rozi Khan Kakar, Gayan Chand and officials of the ministry of industries and production.

Published in Dawn, May 5th, 2016