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Mounting Opposition pressure on Monday forced the DMK to give an assurance that the police would act against those smuggling out rice meant for the poor in Tamil Nadu to earn huge profits.

DMK leader T.K.S. Elangovan said it was the job of the police to ensure that such crimes did not recur.

Dubbing rice-smuggling as a petty crime, Elangovan said that the police would act against petty crimes.

Headlines Today had exposed how stacks of rice meant for the poor in Tamil Nadu were making its way to neighbouring states and from there to Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand and Indonesia.

Under the DMK’s pet public distribution scheme, 20 kg of rice is sold to each ration card-holder at Re 1 per kg. The ration is acquired from government stores.

Headlines Today found 20-odd women carrying such rice in gunny bags to the railway station to board trains leaving Chennai. The rice was offloaded at Tada in Andhra Pradesh and eventually sold off at exorbitant prices.

Headlines Today’s investigation revealed that the smuggled rice is sold at Rs 18 to 28 per kg in Andhra, Kerala and Karnataka. It is even smuggled abroad, where it is sold at anything between Rs 120 to 150 per kg.

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This post was submitted by Chinmaya Nayak.