The Hindu : New Delhi News : Ration quota reduced: BJP

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Friday, Apr 11, 2008
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New Delhi

Ration quota reduced: BJP

Staff Reporter

“Poor suffering due to inept handling by Delhi Government”

“82,000 families deprived of this facility”
“Why withhold supplies when already released by the Centre?”

NEW DELHI: The Leader of the Opposition in the Delhi Assembly, Jagdish Mukhi, has charged that due to inept handling by the State Government the quota of ration for lakhs of poor families in the Capital had got reduced.

Addressing a press conference here, he said the Centre had released the ration quota for 276,000 Below Poverty Line (BPL) and 150,000 Antodaya Anaj Yojna (AAY) card holders for the financial year 2008-09.

However, due to “unclear renewal policy” of ration cards in Delhi, about 82,000 families had been deprived of this facility, he alleged.

The BJP leader said the Delhi Government’s Food and Civil Supplies Department had issued an order for renewal of BPL and AAY cards and under this only those cards which were expiring in 2007 were to be renewed. But, he said, the Delhi Government had even stopped issuing ration and kerosene to those 33,000 AAY card holders whose validity is up to 2009/2010.

This despite the Centre having already released the quota of ration for them, he added.

Prof. Mukhi said in the same way the Delhi Government had stopped issuing ration to about 47,000 BPL card holders. He questioned the logic of withholding their supplies when they have already been released by the Centre.

The BJP leader also charged that while the Delhi Government had announced that it had made a policy to provide full rations including 25 kg wheat and 10 kg rice to all APL card holders whose family annual income is not more than Rs.1 lakh, the allocation had now been arbitrarily cut to 15 kg wheat and 7 kg rice per family per month.

On the other hand, Prof. Mukhi said the Delhi Government in 2007 had not lifted its full quota of ration released by the Centre. He also wondered why the Delhi Government had not made demands for extra allocation of rations for Delhi in view of the ever-increasing population of the city.

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