To prevent people from getting infected with COVID-19 amidst the lockdown, free food grains of two months is being distributed to all the impoverished families in the state on the instructions of chief minister Bhupesh Baghel, an official release here said.
The chief minister has asked all the collectors of the state to provide food grains to all the people of the districts on time.
Amid the lockdown, the state food department is issuing new ration cards to the eligible beneficiaries whose ration cards were either not prepared people whose names are missing, are also being added, a release said.
A total of 29,683 new ration cards have been made in the state since the start of the lockdown and the names of more than 44,394 new members have been added to the re-prepared ration cards, it said.
Officials of the food department said the state government is distributing lump-sum rice for the months of April and May to the ration card holders of Antyodaya, priority, single destitute, disabled and Annapurna categories.
Apart from this, rice is also being distributed to the general category ration card holders at a discounted rate of ?10 per kg. Proper management of food grains is being done by the state government with sensitivity and readiness for the people of the state as well as the labourers and the stranded migrant workers in the state due to the lockdown.
Until now, 8.82 lakh people have been provided food and more than 8.75 lakh people have been provided free ration through the district administration by the food department during the lockdown.
Food department secretary Dr Kamalpreet Singh has instructed the district collectors that the process of issuing ration cards should be a continuous process.
Therefore, on receipt of an application from the beneficiaries for issuing a ration card, it should be issued immediately.
To provide relief to the people during the lockdown, 3,086 new ration cards were issued in Raipur district, out of which 2,582 are BPL and 504 APL cards.
Names of 4,983 members of the APL and BPL categories were added to the ration card in Raipur district.
Some 7,418 new ration cards were issued in Durg district—the highest in the state—out of which 987 BPL and 6431 APL ration cards were added, taking the total number of ration cards in Durg to 9,963, the release said.