Not only has government subsidies been misused when fair price shops have been closed, but millions of rupees of savers in cooperatives have also been wasted.
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A fair price shop opened in Dhurkot with a grant of Rs 1.6 million from the rural municipality has closed. The fair price shop opened by Maitri Cooperative Society in Barbot, the center of Dhurkot Rural Municipality, has been closed since last Asoj.
The shop was established in 2076 BS with the aim of providing food and groceries to the people of Dhurkot Rural Municipality at a fair price. Dhurkot Rural Municipality Chairman Bhupal Pokharel said that Dhurkot Rural Municipality provided a grant of Rs 1.6 million in 2075 BS for the establishment of the shop. 'We built the structure with a grant of Rs 1.6 million from the municipality, the cooperative invested more in land and goods and opened the shop,' Pokharel said.
At that time, the municipality had established the fair price shop by providing a grant, citing the fact that there was no shop in the center of Dhurkot Rural Municipality that could provide all the goods. But since quality goods were not available at a fair price, consumers were forced to buy goods from distant markets, including the district headquarters Tamghas. After consumers stopped going to Maitri due to the high cost, the goods bought at Maitri started to spoil, rot and expire. The Cottage and Small Industries Office, Gulmi, has stated that expired goods were found many times during the monitoring.
‘Last year, goods worth more than 114 thousand were destroyed during the monitoring conducted in Asoj alone, and goods worth more than 45 thousand were found expired the year before,’ said Trivikram Gyawali, an employee of the Cottage Office involved in the monitoring.
An employee of Dhurkot Rural Municipality involved in the monitoring said that although preparations were made to seal the shop as most of the goods were found to be expired, the process was stopped due to pressure from above. ‘Most of the goods at Maitri had expired, but the team returned without taking some goods and paying a fine,’ said the employee.
Although the sealing was stopped at that time, the shop was as if it had been closed after the same monitoring, said Pokharel, Chairman of Dhurkot Rural Municipality. ‘It was going well at first, but later, when private sector shops opened, they started selling some items at a cheaper price. The cooperative could not afford to lose money and could not compete,’ said Pokharel. ‘Last year, goods worth 1.25 lakh rupees were confiscated during monitoring, so they closed them.’
But as the rural municipality chairman Pokharel said, local businessmen say that the argument that the shop opened with the municipality’s grant at a fair price was closed because it could not compete with the private sector is wrong. ‘Even those of us who run private shops do not sell any goods at a loss because we cannot compete with the private sector,’ says a businessman from Burbot. ‘It is wrong to say that we cannot compete with the private sector, but rather that private shops should be closed because they cannot compete with the cooperative that has received government grants.’
When the fair price shop was closed, not only government grants were misused, but also millions of rupees of savers in the cooperative were wasted. In addition to the 1.6 million municipality grant, the cooperative chairman Arjun Acharya said that the cooperative invested an additional 1.1 million rupees to open the shop. The investment belongs to the cooperative savings cooperative. Now that the shop is closed, that 1.1 million rupees of the savings cooperative has also been misused. Locals allege that Maitri was directly given the money instead of encouraging locals to operate shops in the Dhurkot rural municipality center or giving grants to those selected through competition. However, the municipality chairman Pokharel says that since there was no other cooperative that could make a large investment, the grant was given to Maitri, which had a lot of investable capital. Local consumers criticized the cooperative for not keeping fair prices, not keeping goods as per the agreement, and keeping poor-quality and rotten goods. However, instead of instructing them to organize the shop, they have now had to close the shop after the criticism was taken to the rural municipality and threatened. They allege that the shop has now had to be closed. "The rural municipality harassed and threatened us for speaking out on this issue," says a local businessman. "If the shop had been organized instead of harassing us at that time, we would not have had to close the fair-priced shop now."
