Thiruvananthapuram: The decision taken by the state cabinet on Thursday to implement the food security Act within six months would result in a cut in the already reduced quota of rice and the number of families below the poverty line (BPL). The cabinet also decided to complete the distribution of the new ration cards before December. The government acted following an ultimatum from the centre that the state would be left out of the targeted public distribution system if there was further delay.
The end-to-end computerisation process through which ration goods will reach all the 14, 245 ration shops is one of the important components of the Act. The National Informatics Centre has been given charge of developing the software for the process. As per the Act, all the 330 privately-owned ration wholesale depots will be closed down and two government storehouses would be opened in each block in their place. Supplyco would be entrusted with running the storehouses in a phased manner.
In places where there are no government infrastructure for starting such storehouses, privately-owned ration wholesale depots would be taken over after negotiation with the owners. Once such infrastructure is set up in the government sector, the use of private ration wholesale depots will be discontinued. Only 1,54,80,040 people will be included in the priority list of the public distribution system. The priority list should have 52.63 per cent of beneficiaries from urban areas and 39.5 per cent from rural areas. This would mean that 1.79 lakh families will be left out of the purview of the PDS, said Mr Babychan Mukkadan, general secretary, All-India Ration Dealers Association.
The Act has provisions for only 10.13 lakh metric tonnes of foodgrain per month. At present the state receives 15.69 lakh metric tonnes, he said. The state government will have to spend Rs 1,200 crore for extending the PDS to non-priority families. The employees of government, semi-government and public sector companies and teachers will be left out of the priority list, he said.
