Days after a video shared on the internet by BSF jawan Tej Bahadur Yadav alleging abominable quality of food went viral on the internet, the Prime Minister's Office has sought a report from the Home Ministry.
The department had ordered a probe into the claims, however BSF IG DK Upadhyaya asserted that Yadav has earlier been accused of insubordination and intoxication and was facing a court martial. The Union home ministry even directed the BSF to file a complete report on the allegations about substandard food. BSF Director General KK Sharma met Union home secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and submitted a second interim report on the allegations made by the soldier.
While the BSF chief avoided any interaction with the media after his meeting with the ministry, the paramilitary force released a statement later in the evening announcing six measures to provide quality food for its jawans posted along the border. The statement listed audit of prevalent system by team of senior commanding officers as one of the measures. "Issues related to the diet of jawans, issues of ration purchase procedures and pilferafes thereof are the issues of prime concern for any organisation. BSF has taken a holistic view of the situation and follow-up process has been swung into action."
The video which gained traction in a couple of days, has been viewed by over 90 Lakh people and over 4.4 Lakh have shared it on their social media accounts. In the video, he showed the soldiers' pathetic living conditions and the horrible food they were being served. He claimed that despite serving for a steady 11 hours in cold weather, standing in knee-deep ice, soldiers aren't given proper food. He said the government provides everything to the soldiers but that the higher authorities were involved in wrongdoing and sold all the material in open market. Meanwhile, his wife Sharmila came forward and backed her husband asserting that what he did was not wrong and his only intention was to expose the truth. "He told me that he is being pressured to take the complaint back and apologise."
"My husband's problem is that he is in the habit of not tolerating injustice, for which he has suffered during his service tenure. If he were mentally unstable or indisciplined (as claimed by the BSF), why was he given a rifle by the BSF to guard the country's border in crucial areas?" she asked.
Following the incident, the Force has taken steps including chalking out shortcomings of the present process, suggesting procedural and systematic improvements, vigilance for double checks, enhancing formal and informal interactions with jawans and introduction of systemic innovations to ensure cashless transactions in all messes. It tried to justify the food shown in the video by saying the dal shown was tinned food ration and the parantha was cooked in the unit mess as per procedures followed at high-altitude locations.
