Jammu and Kashmir Government is going to provide ration to additional 6.70 lakh families from next month taking the total number of families to be covered under the Public Distribution System in the state to 24.72 lakh. Addressing a press conference here today, the Minister for Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution and Tribal Affairs, Choudhary Zulfkar Ali, said the Government has decided that from September 1, 2015 ration would be provided on existing-prevalent scale to uncovered/additional families worked out after taking into account the authenticated lists provided by the Deputy Commissioners of all the districts of the state. He said the Government is presently distributing ration to 99.47 lakh population as projected in the year 2000.“As per Census 2011 the estimated population of the State is 125 lakh and as per survey conducted by Deputy Commissioners the projected population has been worked out to 136 lakh,” the Minister said.
He said presently there were 18.02 lakh ration ticket holders and now the ration ticket holders as per fresh survey works out to be 24.72 lakh families and the State Government is going to provide ration to 6.70 lakh additional families.Elaborating further, he said the total requirement of food-grains in the State was 7.56 lakh MTs and with addition of uncovered families there is an additional requirement of 2.81 lakh MTs.“On account of increase in population from 2000 to 2015, the total requirement of the food grains for the State will be 10.38 lakhs MTs, while the procurement cost will increase from Rs. 474 crores to Rs. 647.32 crore” he said and added that there will be additional requirement of Rs. 54.50 crore on account of handing and transport charges. “The total requirement of funds for providing ration as per the fresh survey will be Rs 701.82 crores” the Minister said.The Minister said that the funds required for the purpose will be met out under State Plan.The ration shall be distributed under the close supervision of Director CA&PD Kashmir and Jammu and necessary instructions in this regard have already been issued to both the Directors for effective implementation, he added.
“To ensure proper monitoring at grass root level, the vigilance and monitoring committees have been constituted to monitor the movement of food grains sale, stocks and distribution of public distribution supply” the Minister said. He added that the Deputy Commissioners have also been asked to closely monitor the distribution of the ration in their respective districts.Director CAPD Jammu G. S. Chib, Joint Director Information Jammu Nagendra Singh Jamwal, Deputy Director CAPD Supplies Atam Dev Singh, Deputy Director F&R Arun Kotwal, Chief Accounts Officer Iftikar Hussain, other senior officers of CAPD were present during the press conference.Earlier, the Minister also convened a meeting with representatives of Flour Mills of Jammu Region and listened to their issues related to procurement of Atta for Public Distribution. The Minister asked the Flour Mill owners to adhere to the norms set by the department regarding the quality and quantity of the Atta being supplied by them. He also assured the Mill owners that the issues raised by them will be given due consideration.