Minister for Food, Civil Supplies & Consumer Affairs, Satish Sharma, today informed the House that the government has issued standing orders to include left out eligible beneficiaries/households under the Public Distribution System (PDS).
The Minister was replying to a question raised by Choudhary Mohammad Akram. He informed the House that norms for inclusion and exclusion have been laid down for identifying the beneficiaries which form the basis for change of group under NFSA.
The Minister also informed that the government has ordered inclusion of the children born after 2011 upto 2016. "In case the department is left with available targets, assigned by the Department of Food and Public Distribution, Government of India, thereafter, further inclusion of children born after the year 2016 shall also be considered, the Minister added.
The Minister said that, however, bifurcation of ration cards has been stopped for adhering to targets assigned for coverage of families under PDS, particularly AAY households, by the Department of Food and Public Distribution (Gol), where the entitlement is at the scale of 35Kg per household.
He said that the process of bifurcating ration cards through issuance of fresh Ration Cards will lead to implications of arranging additional food grains for such new households, increasing the burden on the department under other schemes being run by the FCS&CA department and other schemes, where the Public Distribution System database is utilized and household is the unit of entitlement.
The Minister said that the department is contemplating opening of new Fair Price Shops as per framework in vogue, which is part of Jammu and Kashmir Targeted Public Distribution System (Control).
The Minister informed that it has been thought prudent to rope in elected members also to firm up requirements of new Fair Price Shops across J&K, which necessitates relook into the existing framework.