In the wake of apprehensions that the implementation of the Food Security Act would affect the supply of food grains to families the Above Poverty Line, the State government has urged the Centre to raise its quota of food grains from 14.25 lakh tonnes this year to the last year’s volume of 16.32 lakh tonnes.
Addressing media persons here on Saturday, Civil Supplies Minister Anoop Jacob said that the issue was taken up during a meeting with Union Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan in Thiruvananthapuram on December 31. “While implementation of the scheme will not take even a single family out of the public distribution system, this will lead to a cut down in the share of food supply to each of the APL families by an average of one kilogram’’, the Minister said.
According to the Minister, the scheme lacks clarity on certain issues such as the system of rationing to institutions like orphanages and on the additional cost of Rs.250 crore to be incurred by the State government.
“Our demand is that the Union government should take up at least a portion of this excess cost, incurred on account of transporting the materials to the ration shops’’, he said. Besides, it had also sought permission for implementing the scheme by including all the members in the Below Poverty Line list in the priority list.
“We have kick-started the efforts towards preparing the priority list and plans to finish the distribution of ration cards within six months’’, said Mr. Jacob.
Further, the State had intimated to the Union government its willingness to distribute 10.20 lakh tonne of its overall share of 14.25 lakh tonne to the people under the priority list. The State government has designated Supplyco as the nodal agency for distribution of materials to PDS shops. The project has already begun on a pilot basis within the Ernakulam city limits and in Kothamangalam.
