Chief Minister Hemant Soren today said that it is the government's priority to make available food grains to the poor of the State. He said that work is being done to stop those people who despite being affluent are using the benefits being given to the poor by the government in a wrong way. The CM was holding a review meeting of the Department of Food, Public Distribution and Consumer Affairs here on Wednesday.
The CM said that under the Dal-Bhat Yojana run by the government at the time of lockdown, millions of people have been provided free food. The government is working towards strengthening the regular Dal Bhat centers under the Chief Minister's Dal Bhat Scheme. Special attention is to be given to cleanliness at these centers, as well as to promote the use of ‘Pattal’ by eliminating the use of plastic.
The CM said that sugar is made available to the beneficiaries at a subsidized rate from the Central government through the public distribution system. In addition, if jaggery is also distributed, it is beneficial for health as well as our farmers can also be encouraged in the direction of sugarcane production.
He said that during the Kharif marketing season 2016-2017 to 2019-2020, a total of 183 per cent increase in paddy procurement has been recorded. The government has to work to encourage rice mill and Godown construction so that the grain received by the farmers can be processed correctly.
It was informed in the meeting that under the Food Distribution Scheme, the lifting of food grains is being done in the previous month of the allocation month, so that food grains can be made available to the beneficiaries in the allocation month. 100 per cent ration cards have been linked to Aadhaar. 100 per cent public distribution system is being distributed through e-POS machines in shops. Aadhaar seeding of 87.92 per cent of the total members covered by the National Food Security Act has been done. For the speedy execution of complaints of the public of the State, 55,015 complaints have been executed out of a total of 55,665 complaints received from April to November, 2020 under the Public Grievance Management System (PGMS) under the department.
The State government is going to bring Jharkhand State Food Security Scheme in the month of January. Under this, 5 kg rice per member per member will be made available to each beneficiary at a subsidized rate of Re 1 per kg. Under this scheme a total of 15 lakh people, who are not covered by the National Food Security Act will be covered. Green ration card will be made available to the beneficiaries under the scheme.
Under the government computerization scheme, online allocation of food grains, computerization of supply chain, ration card management system, digitization of list of beneficiaries and installation of e-posh machines and online distribution of food grains are being done in all 25,548 PDS shops. Under this, the work of canceling 76 per cent of the duplicate ration cards has been done so far.
In the review meeting, Minister of Food Public Distribution and Consumer Affairs Department Rameshwar Oraon, Chief Secretary Sukhdev Singh, Development Commissioner KK Khandelwal, Additional Chief Secretary, Department of Food, Public Distribution and Consumer Affairs, Arun Kumar Singh, Joint Secretary Shantanu Kumar Agrahari and other officials of the department were present.