A high level study team from Nepal visited Odisha to know about the innovative approaches and methods adopted by the State in ensuring food security for the poor and vulnerable.
Speaking to the Team at a high-level interactive session, Chief Secretary Mahapatra said, “No poor will stay in hunger is the motto of our Government and Governance.”
Recently the public distribution system ( PDS) has been transformed to a higher level with adoption of technology, ground truthing of data base, data sanitization and dynamic data monitoring on a real time basis, he informed.
Principal Secretary Food Security and Consumer Welfare Vir Vikram Yadav presented Odisha’s journey towards food security during last two decades. “State’s requirement of rice for different schemes comes around 30 lakh million ton and the State delivers 22 lakh million ton to the central pool of Government of India. Odisha is now the 4th largest rice supplier to the central pool.”
Further, Yadav added, “The State has ensured food security for more than 95.74 lakh families embracing around 3.33 crore members which constitutes nearly 80 percent of the total population of the State as per 2011 census. The entire TDPS operation is equipped with end to end computerisation. Presently, around 12,124 FPSs are distributing nearly 1.87 lakh MT of food grains to 33.3 million beneficiaries per month through 90% Aadhaar and Mobile OTP based authentication. Feed-back management system has also been adopted under Mo Sarkar framework.”
Secretary, Women and Child Development and Social Security and Empowerment of Persons with Disability Bhaskar Jyoti Sharma also spoke.