While critics called it the beginning of a pre-electoral battle of bounties Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday responded to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s extension of free ration package till November --- just around when Bihar elections are scheduled to take place --- with a more-than-matching largesse of free ration that would continue till 2021 June when the State Assembly polls are likely to end.
“They are giving free ration till the month of November… So we will give it till the month of June next year,” Banerjee said reminding that “Bengal is giving a better deal than the Centre insofar as the quality of the rice is concerned as we directly procure the good quality rice from the farmers but they take it rice from FCI … additionally we are also giving flour along with rice.”
Referring to the central scheme she said that the package announced by the Union Government only covers 60 percent people unlike how it works in Bengal.
“Here in Bengal we provide free ration to the entire population of more than 10 crore people but their scheme is limited to only half of the population. The Central scheme caters to only 6 crore population of Bengal whereas my scheme reaches each and every household. So I will request the Prime Minister to extend his scheme to the entire 130 crore people of the country,” Banerjee said questioning the efficacy of the one country one ration card scheme too.
“From our childhood we have seen different kinds of ration cards, from the long white ones to blue and red ones to the digital ones and now we are listening to a new slogan of one nation one ration card… the concept is still not clear to me,” she said wondering whether this scheme was equivalent to the other schemes like “one nation one election or one nation one leader etc.”
On Monday she had launched a circuitous attack against the Centre for refusing to disclose details on the PM CARES Fund, wondering why Delhi was not disclosing the amount it had received.
“We have nothing to hide on how much we have received. We are not shying away from talking about it,” she said adding her government has so far got Rs 190 crore to fight the COVID-19 pandemic and for Amphan relief. She said the state government has released Rs 6,500 crore and more will be required.
Earlier on Tuesday the Chief Minister said that her Government was writing three letters to the Centre requesting it to restrict regular flights from hotspot areas to a single flight a week, besides appealing for withdrawal of special laws related to cooperative banks.
“Our Chief Secretary is writing to the Centre to restrict flights from hotspot areas to Bengal to one flight a week,” she said. “In fact we will ask the Centre to stop flights from such areas altogether for two coming weeks at least,” Banerjee said adding a second letter was going with a “request of repealing the new legislations sought to hammer the cooperative banks which are very useful to run state’s economy.”
Besides “we are also writing to the Centre to start the Metro services at least to ferry those people who are associated with essential services during the corona times,” Banerjee said.