TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: The central Food Security Act will be implemented in the State by September 15, Civil Supplies Minister Dayanand Mandrekar assured the Goa Legislative Assembly on Monday.
“We wanted to implement the Bill but we lost three months due to the election code of conduct. We had requested the Centre to give us additional time which has been granted. We are implementing this Bill by September 15,” Mandrekar said while replying to a cut motion on the demand of grants on civil supply.
The minister also announced that digitization of the public distribution system (PDS) records would be complete by March 2015, and Bardez taluka will be the first to get smart ration cards.
State run Goa Electronic Limited (GEL) has been tasked with digitizing the data of every ration card holder from Bardez taluka.
While admitting several difficulties faced by the officials in the process, Mandrekar further said that government will give six months for ration card holders to fill the forms to change over to smart ration cards. “Those who fill the forms will get the smart ration card. There are several families who are not aware of this. I request the respective MLAs of the constituencies to create awareness or else we may not meet our target,” he said adding several other families are living abroad because of which they are not able to complete the formalities. In Bardez alone there are 77,000 ration cards, but only 44,000 people have filled the forms as on date.
