The Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Department has portrayed glossy picture of achievements during the first 1,000 days of the BJP Government in the State.
Department Secretary Vinay Kumar Choubey said on Thursday that the department which interacted with some 80 per cent of population of the State on nearly daily basis enjoyed being first in country to start and implement Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) in kerosene among many such others.
Choubey, however, admitted that there were issues with paddy purchase which couldn’t stand to expectations of farmers due to various reasons, primarily insufficient rice milling companies, and some technical glitches which were largely resolved later. He also cried acute shortage of manpower in the department, saying that the shortage mounted up to 50 percent at Block level in implementing certain programmes.
“Despite few of our major hurdles, we were able to implement many firsts in country. Jharkhand enjoyed being first in providing monthly 35Kg packaged food grain to some 70,000 such primitive tribal families which were not even aware of any such programme being run by the State. Number of such families has grown to nearly 80,000 in last four months. But DBT in food grains which we are going to start from Nagri block in Ranchi on October 2 this year is going to be one of the game changer firsts,” said Choubey.
Notably, the press conference organised by department on Thursday was one among such initiatives of the Government, which has directed all the departments to take its achievements during first 1,000 days of the government to the public.
Interestingly, all of such previous press conferences were addressed by respective department ministers. But absence of Roy from the scene on Thursday has somehow once again strengthened already floating speculations of his not-so-good relationships with department senior officials, including Choubey too.
“In our view, successful implementation of National Food Security Act which has risen up to feeding 58 lakh beneficiaries by now from merely 35 lakh such beneficiaries three years ago remains one of our biggest achievements. Moreover, we are first in country to provide gas connection with first refill to 8 lakh beneficiaries so far under Pradhanmantri Ujjwala Yojna, which is going to touch 28 lakh in another eight months, much ahead of deadline of 2019 given to us by Union Government,” added Choubey.