The State Cabinet, which met under Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s chairmanship at the State Secretariat here on Monday, approved the much-hyped proposal of implementation of the State Government’s own food security scheme with inclusion and exclusion criteria to cover poor, distressed and other eligible beneficiaries.
“The State Government has time and again requested the Centre to increase the beneficiaries under the NFSA at population growth rate of 10.22 per cent as per 2011 Census. While the population of the State is estimated to be 4,62,63,983 in 2018, beneficiaries need to be increased by 34.44 lakh.
As the Union Government didn’t increase, the State decided to launch its own Food Security Scheme to cover all eligible people who have been left out of the NFSA,” said Chief Secretary AP Padhi.
Padhi told reporters that 25 lakh people would benefit during the first year of implementation of the scheme from October 2, 2018.
As per the proposal approved by the Cabinet, 11 auto inclusion and nine exclusion criteria would find out eligible beneficiaries to be covered under the scheme.
The auto inclusion criteria are all households coming under the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG) category, households without shelter, households with destitute living on alms, households with widows and other single women with no regular support, households having a PwD (40% disability), households with old persons above 60 years’ age with no regular support, households where no adult member
is available to engage in gainful employment, households dependent on daily wages, internally displaced persons due to various projects and households having a person suffering from leprosy/HIV/any other critical diseases.
The exclusion criteria are households having a member who owns a four-wheeler or heavy vehicle, households having a member working as a regular employee of Central or the State Government, PSU, Government aided autonomous bodies and local bodies, households having a member working in private company with monthly salaries of more than Rs 10,000 in rural areas and Rs 15,000 in urban areas, households having a member who owns an enterprise, households having electricity conneion with a load of 2 KW or more or consuming an average of 300 units of energy (KWH) per month over a year, households having a member paying income tax, households having a pension drawing more than Rs 10,000 in rural areas and Rs 15,000 in per month, families having a member who owns tractors and harvesotors and households who own three or more rooms with RCC roof not built under ht IWY/PMAY/BPGY/Nirman Shramik Yojana.
