The Punjab Government is providing door-step delivery of foodgrain to about 31 lakh identified beneficiary families under the National Food Security Act, 2013 (NFSA-2013), in the State. “Earlier, only about 11 per cent of the State’s population was eligible for receiving subsidised foodgrain, which was much lower than the neighbouring States like Haryana with the same socio-economic pattern. However, after aggressive persuasion by Punjab, the coverage has increased manifold,” said the state Food and Civil Supplies Minister Adesh Partap Singh Kairon on Monday while interacting with the media.
He said Punjab was the first state to have implemented the National Food Security Act 2013. Under the NFSA, 54.79 percent rural and 44.83 percent urban population in the state was to be covered, he said. “Out of the total population of 277.042 lakh, 141.45 lakh individuals were entitled for receiving subsidized food grains under targeted public distribution system or NFSA,” he said.
He said that as per the provisions of the Act, District Grievance Redressal Officers and Nodal Officers for all the districts have also been appointed. "All the existing BPl and blue ration card holders along with Antodaya families, total 17.9 lakh families were covered first under the National Food Security Act, 2013, with effect from December 2013,” he said.
Kairon said that the identification of new beneficiary families having annual income less than Rs 60,000 was done by the Deputy Commissioners according to the criteria decided for identification of beneficiaries. “The newly identified 13 lakh beneficiary families were covered under Phase-II and the distribution of wheat to the newly identified families had been started from February 2014,” he said.
“At present, about 31 lakh identified beneficiary families are being covered under NFSA in the State,” he added. The Minister said that all identified beneficiaries were being distributed UID compliant e-ration cards, and the Punjab Government was the first state in the country to have initiated the e-ration cards to the beneficiaries, in order to ensure that only genuine or deserving beneficiaries would get subsidised ration. “The photographs of the beneficiaries are being taken from UID database. After the implementation of NFSA, the distribution is being done strictly on the basis of digitised database of the ration card holders,” he said.