TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: By January, wheat and rice allotted to Goa will drop by around 55 per cent under the new Food Security Act. The state will end up losing some 35,000 tonnes of grains as the universal coverage to its people under the public distribution scheme will change to cover only 38 per cent of the population.
As of now the state together receives around 65,000 tonnes of rice and wheat.
Only around 5.57 lakh of the 14 lakh state’s population will receive grains from 2014. This figure includes the poorest of the poor section of society that come under the AAI or Antodaya Scheme amounting to around 60,000 persons or 14,000 families.
The balance after removing the 60,000 people coming under the AAI will be 5 lakh and the state will have to adopt a criteria to identify these people.
So according to the scheme, the state will get some 6000 tonnes for the AAI and 25,000 tonnes for others.
Families coming under AAI are entitled to 35 kgs of rice and wheat (combined) at Rs 3 per kg, as informed by the Centre to the Civil Supplies Department which has been asked to frame the rules on coverage by January 5.
“Benefit is there, but the coverage will reduce. At the moment it is universal,” says Civil Supplies Director M Gaunekar, adding that they have been given six months time to put the criteria in place. The Food Security ordinance became effective from July 5.
According to the details, the ordinance is beneficial to bigger states like UP – 76% coverage; Bihar 85% coverage. But even Delhi with 42% coverage fares better than Goa leading some to question the criteria adopted to arrive at this figure.
However, the only difference is that the grains will be sold at Rs 3 per kg and as compared to the earlier scheme, now people will get grains as a matter of right.
Earlier, along with the AAI there was another category of below poverty line – with another 60,000 people and 14,000 families – that used to get benefits of foodgrains, but at Rs 6 to 6.50 per kg. According to the new scheme there are only two categories – AAI and others and all will get grains at Rs 3.
