Hyderabad: The Telangana government is in a Catch-22 situation over implementing National Food Security Act from October 1, the latest deadline set by the Centre.
The Centre had warned the states that it would stop the supply of ration quota if they failed to meet the October deadline.
It is supplying only 1.12 lakh metric tonnes of rice to Telangana, while the requirement here is 1.80 lakh metric tonnes.
The TS government has written to Centre in May this year to fill this deficit to implement the Act, but there has been no response so far.
The TS government argues that it cannot afford to purchase rice from open market to meet this deficit, amouting to nearly 68,000 metric tonnes.
According to the Centre’s data, there are 1.91 crore BPL families in the state against the TS data of 2.86 crore, showing a variation of nearly 95 lakh.
The Centre has been allotting rice quota to TS based on its data. Moreover, the Centre has been supplying only 5 kg of rice per head in a household, while TS is giving 6 kg of rice per head.
Besides, the TS government had raised the annual income limit to Rs 1.5 lakh in rural areas and Rs 2 lakh in urban areas for a family to be eligible for the ration cards in 2014.
Earlier, the income limit was Rs 60,000 in rural areas and Rs 75,000 in urban areas. All these factors contributed to 95 lakh excess BPL families in TS, when compared with Centre’s data.
Moreover, TS is providing rice at Rs 1 per kg, while Centre is supplying rice to the state at three variable prices — Rs 3 per kg, Rs 5.65 per kg and Rs 8.30 per kg.
These factors are putting huge burden on TS government. Only 11 States and Union Territories have so far implemented the Act which was passed by Parliament in September 2013 despite extending the deadline twice since then.
Finance and civil supplies minister Etela Rajender on Friday held a meeting at MCRHRD with officials on this issue. It was decided to take up the issue with Centre again seeking enhancement of ration quota.
It was also decided to issue new food security cards for beneficiaries at Rs 6 per card from September besides introducing biometric system for distribution of ration to check irregularities.
Mr Rajender said that the government had seized over 54,000 bogus cards so far and the drive will be continued in all other districts.
