The All India Ration Dealers Association will organise a dharna in front of Raj Bhavan on November 1 in protest against the Central government’s decision to cut allotment of rice and kerosene to Kerala under the public distribution system (PDS).
The move to reduce the quota of rice and kerosene consequent on the non-implementation of the Food Security Act was unjustifiable, Babychan Mukkadan, general secretary of the organisation, said.
He said the association would not take part in the one-day strike on October 24 called by a section of ration dealers. The association had been demanding salary for dealers as well as salesmen, apart from payment of rent to the PDS outlets. The dealers would surrender their licences and quit if the demands were not met, he said.
Mr. Babychan alleged that the names of lakhs of ineligible beneficiaries had got onto the PDS priority list released by the government. Many of the eligible families had been left out. Wrong information provided by applicants were not scrutinised, he said. He alleged that the taluk-level ranking committees had not met before finalising the list.
Though the government had permitted appeals till the end of the month, only those people who had been excluded from the priority list would approach the authorities.
The ineligible names included on the list would continue to be there. Income tax payers and those who owned houses with area exceeding 1,000 square feet had been included on the beneficiary list, he said.
