Tamil Nadu government, which had for long been resisting the implementation of National Food Security Act, on Thursday announced that it would implement the Act from November 1.
However, the State government would also continue with its Universal Public Distribution System and hence rice provided to ration card holders through the Public Distribution System, would continue to be provided free of cost, an official release stated late on Thursday. The implementation of National Food Security Act and continuing with the free of cost rice would cost the exchequer an additional Rs. 1,193.30 crore per annum.
The decision to implement the Act in Tamil Nadu was taken in a Cabinet meeting on the “advice of Chief Minister Jayalalithaa” for the welfare of the people and the Act would be implemented though it would put an additional financial burden on the State Exchequer, the release stated.
The decision to implement the Food Security Act followed a communication from the Centre that if Tamil Nadu didn’t implement the Act immediately, the Centre would be forced to provide rice for Above Poverty Line (APL) families only at Rs. 22.54 per kg instead of Rs. 8.30 per kg. The Hindu was the first to have reported about this earlier this month.
Though as per the FSA, one-person and two-person families are entitled only for 5 kg and 10 kg rice per month respectively, the Tamil Nadu government would continue to give existing ration of 12 kg rice and 16 kg rice to these families respectively.
Replacing the ration of 20 kg rice for every ration card, every member in the card would be entitled for 5 kg rice per month. For instance, in a family of seven persons, who were entitled to only 20 kg of rice for their ration card, they would now be entitled to 5 kg per person and thus would get a total of 35 kg of rice instead of the existing 20 kg per ration card per month.
The Antyodaya Anna Yojana cards would continue to get 35 kg of rice per month.
