Minister for Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Choudhary Zulfkar Ali today informed the upper house that 74.13 lakh population in the state is being provided food grains at highly subsidized rates."The government implemented National Food Security Act (NFSA) from February 2016. Under the Act, 5Kg of food grains is being provided per soul per month under the act", he said in reply to a question by Ramesh Arora.Giving details, the Minister said that under Priority House Hold (PHH) category, 74.13 lakh population is being provided food grains at highly subsidized rates of Rs 3 and Rs 2 for rice and wheat respectively. He said under Non-Priority House Hold (NPHH)/ Tide-over Category, 45 lakh population is being provided food grains at Rs 15 and Rs 12 respectively from October 2016.
He, however, said AAY beneficiaries continue to get 35 Kgs ration per month per family in the state. He said the rationees of downtrodden and landless sections such as STs/SCs have not been put to any hardships on this count.The Minister informed that new ration cards are being issued to all the eligible households/consumers who are covered under the ambit of NFSA. He, however, said the instructions have also been issued to the concerned to complete the process of issuance of ration cards as early as possible. He further said that E-Ration tickets are available on the departmental portal.The Minister said that department has recently been mandated by the Finance Department to constitute revolving fund for the procurement of food grains out of the funds received on account of sale proceeds and the deficit budget would be provided by the Finance Department. He said the matter of proforma account would be looked into and will be prepared in the best interest of rendering funds.Legislators Jugal Kishore and Dr Shehnaz Ganai raised supplementary question to main question.