Rs 6,000 crore allotted towards food subsidy, says Kamaraj

Addressing the Assembly, Kamaraj said, “All essential commodities are procured and issued to cardholders under Public Distribution System (PDS) as well as Special PDS at highly subsidised rates. Rice and wheat are distributed free of cost under the PDS and the state has allocated Rs 6,000 crore as food subsidy for the financial year 2019-20.”

He also said that the PDS items are sold in 35,279 fair price shops across the state and now the government had introduced smart cards to check pilferage. “As on May 31, this year, government had distributed 1,99,53,681 smart cards in the state,” said Minister.

The poorest of the poor families residing in the state are identified and brought under the Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) scheme. Besides other commodities, AAY beneficiaries are entitled for 35 kg of rice free of cost. There are total 18,64,600 AAY beneficiaries allotted by the Central government in the state and the scheme ensures total food security in the state.

Minister demands adequate kerosene from Centre

The Minister further said that kerosene is allotted to the state by the Union government on quarterly basis for distribution under the PDS and the requirement of the state is 43,940 kilo litres per month but the Centre had reduced the allocation of kerosene to the state.

“Government of India had gradually reduced the state’s kerosene allocation to 16,148 kilo litres per month from October 2017. The amount of kerosene caters to only 37 percentage of the total state’s requirement,” said Kamaraj.

The state is continuously insisting the Centre to distribute 100 percentage kerosene requirement, said the Minister.

Another issue concerned with kerosene is the storage price. “The state government has protested against the unprecedented increase in ex-storage price of kerosene by Rs 8.62 per litre by the Union government from July 1, 2016 but now the price had increased to Rs 14.62 per litre from May 31, this year.

More than 5K MT rice provided to mosques Kamaraj went on to say that the state government makes special allotment of raw rice to mosques for preparing ‘Nonbu Kanji’ (Fast Day Porridge) every year and this year a total of 5,450.384 metric tonnes of rice was supplied to 2,927 mosques across the state at the cost of Rs 1 per kg. The total cost incurred by the state for distribution of rice to mosques is Rs 54.5 lakh.