Minister for Consumer Affairs & Public Distribution and Tribal Affairs, Choudhary Zulfkar Ali Friday announced that CA&PD department will be bifurcated with separate directorates for consumer affairs and public distribution."It gives me immense pleasure to announce that the CA&PD department will be split into separate Consumers Affairs and Public Distribution departments which will have separate directors. We are also planning to have separate administrative units for the two departments in future," Zulfkar said.The Minister was speaking to media-persons outside the office of Director of CA&PD in Shaheed Gunj locality of Srinagar where he inaugurated the scheme for distribution of ration according to Census 2011.The Minister said the State Government presently distributes ration according to Census 2000 to 99.47 lakh souls which has grown to 136 lakh souls according to a survey conducted by the Deputy Commissioners of the 22 districts of the state.
He said the ration is being distributed as per the latest survey on the basis of the report of the committee constituted vide Government Order No 33-CAPD, Dated 16-04-2015 and the directions have been given in this regard to the CA&PD directors in Jammu as well as Kashmir region."There were 18.02 lakh ration card holders which have gone up to 24.72 lakh. The total requirement of food grains in the state was 7.56 lakh metric tonnes in the year 2000, which has gone up to 10.38 lakh metric tonnes," the Minister said.Zulfkar said the procurement cost will increase from Rs 474 crores to Rs 701.82 crores and the funds required for the purpose will be met under the State Plan."To ensure foolproof implementation, the Vigilance and Monitoring Committee has been constituted, vide Government Order No 89 of CA&PD department, Dated: 19-08-2015, to monitor the movement of food grains, sale, stocks and distribution of food grains. The Deputy Commissioners have been asked to closely monitor the implementation," the Minister said.