Jharkhand has ventured into being the first State in country to provide Direct Benefit Transfer for Kerosene (DBTK).
Food, Public Distribution and Consumer Affairs Minister Saryu Roy said on Friday that the plan is ready to be launched on Saturday in four districts to start with. These districts include Chatra, Khunti, Hazaribagh and Jamtara, where considerable amount of paper work has been done to kick this programme off.
Roy, along with Department Secretary Vinay Kumar Choubey and other officials of the Ministry came up with a number of initiatives being started by the department to take e-governance in many programmes ahead. Other than DBTK, online registration of farmers for paddy procurement and launch of Pradhanmantri Ujjwala Yojna (PMUY) are the ones in the line to be started soon.
“We are starting inviting application for White Ration Card for whole of the October, and entire November will take to verify the application received. Digitisation and Adhaar seeding of the card which will be used for DBTK will consume first half of December. We expect White Ration Card printing and distribution to be completed by end of December. Those families not covered in Food Security Act can apply for this,” said Roy.
He added that Jharkhand was also going to become the first among States to give lPG cylinder for cooking and stove absolutely free to families still deprived of it.
“At present we are giving one cylinder along with one stove to any consumer in little over `3,100, in which central government contributes little over `1,600. We have decided to provide one lPG cylinder, one stove and first refill of the cylinder at absolutely no cost,” said Roy.
Choubey said that PMUY will be launched anytime after October 15. “We have identified some 2.5 lakh families to be given free lPG by March next year. We have targeted to provide this facility to as much as 23 lakh families out of total 28 lakh under-privileged families in next three years,” he added.
Roy also said that the paddy procurement process was going to be strictly registration based. “We have saw a number of flaws last year and even before that in paddy procurement. This year, the registration of farmers has been decided to be a must. However, those who don’t get registered can also come at the time of procurement. But they will have to get registered then, making a delay in comparison to others in procurement,” said Roy.