Beginning September, around six lakh beneficiaries in the Union Territory will receive direct cash for grains such as rice and wheat entitled under Food Security Act from the Central Government in addition to 10 kilo free rice and five kilo wheat from the Union Territory Government.
At present, around 516 fair price shops are supplying subsidised essential commodities such as rice, wheat and sugar which were allotted by the Central Government under the Targeted Public Distribution System from the stock of Food Corporation of India.
These shops also supply 10 kilo single boiled rice and five kilo wheat at free of cost in Puducherry and Karaikal to the card holders under State Scheme of public distribution.
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To streamline the public distribution system and in order to ensure the right to food to everyone, the Centre has introduced the Food Security Act. A committee headed by Former Food Minister Shanta Kumar had recommended the introduction of Direct Cash Benefit Transfer (DBT) for food grain in order to save food subsidy bill to the tune of Rs.30,000 crore per year to the Central government.
P. Priytarshny, Director, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs told The Hindu , “The persons who are entitled to receive grains under the Food Safety Act will receive direct cash transfer benefits to their bank accounts. We are in the process the identifying and notifying the beneficiaries and working out certain technicalities. The DBT will be implemented over and above the State Scheme —10 kilo free rice and five kilo free wheat.”
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The data cleansing process was completed and was given to the Central Government for further validation. The cash benefit will be calculated based on unit of grain to a person. There will be no hitch in the implementation of the DBT as 98 per cent of household have been linked to bank accounts already.
Through the migration to DBT, Union government expects to save costs incurred to meet out expenses of food grain supply chain management and logistics.
A committee headed by Former Food Minister Shanta Kumar had recommended introduction of DBT