The State food and civil supply department has launched a toll free number 1800-180-2000 to facilitate the people to register complaints in regards to irregularities in the execution of National Food Security (NFS) Scheme in the State. The department has set October 1 as the deadline to implement the NFS scheme.
Dehradun food and civil supply officer PS Pangti said that NFS scheme will be implemented in Dehradun and other parts of the State from October 1 this year. The Centre has recently approved the required quantum of food grains like wheat and rice, he said. The Centre had included the State for the scheme after the State had fulfilled its guidelines, he added.
Notably, the Centre had earlier put three conditions before the State Government prior to giving its nod to the implementation of the scheme. These were computerisation of new ration cards, online allocation of food grains and launching toll free number, facilitating people to register complaints regarding the scheme. The State department had fulfilled all the guidelines and a report regarding the same was sent to the Central Government recently following which the approval came, he said. Under this scheme, the Central Government would provide 20741.97 metric ton of rice and 12712.83 metric ton of wheat for the State.
He further said that the department officers would start making ration cards under State Food Security Scheme from the first week of October. The families having annual income of Rs5 lakh and less will be issued ration cards under the scheme.
Notably, if National Food Security (NFS) Act is implemented in the State around 62 lakh population would be covered under it and they would be given five kgs of food grains, comprising three kilos of rice and two kilos of wheat per person at the rate of Rs3 and Rs2 per kg for rice and wheat respectively. Around 13.30 lakh families which had applied in the department had been included in the scheme and they had been given the new ration cards accordingly. APl category people having monthly income Rs15,000 would also benefit.
It may be mentioned here that after launching of NFSS on August 20, 2013 in the State, then CM Bahuguna had announced that BPl and Antyodaya card holders would also be included in the scheme as beneficiaries.