Thiruvananthapuram: The state government has decided to bring rice from West Bengal and distribute it through Niti stores by March 10. The government has also formed a consortium of 26 cooperative societies to procure rice from other states. This was stated by Co-operation Minister Kadakampally Surendran in the Assembly in reply to questions on Tuesday.
Seeks exclusion from EFL
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has written to the centre to exclude 886.7 sq km of ‘non-forest land’ from the area demarcated as Ecologically Fragile Land (EFL) by the Kasturirangan report for preservation of the western ghats. Mr Vijayan was replying to a calling-attention motion asking the government to exert pressure on the centre to exclude populated areas, agriculture land and plantation regions from the final notification of the EFL. If necessary, the government will approach the centre again with the same request, he said.
Row over rule 300 statement
The request of Revenue Minister E. Chandrasekharan to postpone for a day the rule 300 statement he had proposed to make raised a debate in the Assembly. Mr Chandrasekharan made the demand as he had to get some more details. However, the Opposition questioned this. Speaker P Sreeramakrishnan allowed the minister to postpone the statement pointing out that the minister himself had proposed to make such a statement.
