CPI (M) state secretary and MLA Kulgam M Y Tarigami has asked the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah to remove discrepancies in the grant of free ration to flood affected people in Jammu and Kashmir.In a letter to the Chief Minister, a copy of which lies with KNS, Tarigami has pinpointed the ‘discrepancies and grave shortcomings’ in the free ration scheme announced by the state government last month.“Apparently the free ration of rice has been sanctioned in favour of those who have been directly affected by the floods and also to those whose crops have been damaged by the heavy rains and hail storm. However the lists prepared by the Deputy Commissioners are faulty. A number of affected families have been left out while names of some families have been repeated,” the letter reads.
”In the villages, the landless (Nangar) groups have been totally left out. The reason perhaps being, that since they have no land and crops, they lost nothing. The officials have ignored the fact that these groups, who are family barbers, carpenters, black smiths, cowherds, shepherds and priests traditionally depend on the yearly wages paid to them in kind by the farmers (Jajmani system). When the farmers lost their crops almost wholly, how can they pay the wages to these landless serving groups?” Tarigami asked.“These groups are poor and belong to most deprived classes. If they are not included in the list of beneficiaries, their sense of deprivation will increase and will generate anger and dissatisfaction,” he warned.The CPI (M) leader told Omar that excluding the landless weaker sections from the free ration arrangement is against social justice and will send a wrong signal, that in the hour of crisis; government neglected the poorest of the poor.“The anomaly has resulted in resentment and due to protests at sale depots; the distribution of the ration is not going on smoothly,” he said.