Orders authorities not to deny food grains to beneficiares under any circumstances
Jamshedpur, June 20 : Amidst on going political slugfest over alleged hunger deaths in the State, Union food secretary Ravi Kant inspected the Food Corporation of India (FCI) godown in Burmamines.
He was in East Singhbhum for a random inspection of storage and distribution network of food grains and implementation of National Food Security Act (NFSA) 2013.
�I am here to inspect the facilities available. I have also ordered the food secretary of Jharkhand during yesterday’s meeting in Ranchi , that under no circumstances should food grains be denied to beneficiaries, in case of network issues or lack of Aadhaar card. The authentication should be done manually by checking existing identity proof,� said Ravi.
He convened a meeting with Jharkhand food and civil supplies secretary Amitabh Kaushal at Ranchi yesterday. His field visit continued for about four hours. The senior bureaucrat however said that the number of PDS where network issues persists were very less.
The food secretary also today visited a PDS outlet in Deonagar in Baradwari which caters to large number of leprosy inmates of an ashram along with a PDS outlet in Kashidih.
The food secretary also visited Food Corporation of India (FCI) godown at Burmamines and Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC) godown at Gamharia (in Seraikela-Kharsawan) which falls under CWC Jamshedpur region.
The secretary has ordered to speed up repair work and construction at FCI godown in Burmamines
�As per our study in East Singhbhum out of a total of 1488 PDS outlets, around 80 outlets have network issues and across Jharkhand the number of such outlets, out of a total of 25,383 outlets is also negligible. The state government is working with telecom operators to strengthen network. Our role is to ensure food grain distribution to benefit continues, ” noted the secretary.
The opposition parties in the State have claimed that 11 persons have died of hunger since September 2017 in different parts of the state mostly due to failure in getting food grains under public distribution system (PDS). They claimed that out of the 11 hunger deaths since September last year five cases the victim�s family did not have a ration card.
In one case the family�s ration card was cancelled as it was not linked with Aadhaar. In four cases the family could not access ration due to the mandatory requirement of Aadhaar-based biometric authentication for accessing PDS foodgrains.
