 Early Times Report
JAMMU, Dec 5: Minister for Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution, Choudhary Zulfkar Ali today said the District Development Commissioners (DDCs) will identify, in their respective districts, eligible households to be covered under priority category of NFSA.
Chairing a high-level follow-up meeting here today to review roll-out of NFSA in the State, the Minister emphasized upon the officers to complete the beneficiary categorization process in a fair and transparent manner at the earliest.
The Minister further said that Aadhar-ration card linkage is not mandatory in the beginning as major chunk of rural population are not even enrolled for Aadhar seeding yet.
He asked the Secretary CA&PD to place an amount of Rs 5 lakh each at the disposal of all DDC s for completion of identification process at the earliest.
"Under NFSA, only priority households and extremely poor families constituting about 74.13 lakh souls (63.55% rural and 47.10% urban populace) are entitled to subsidized food-grains. However, we have decided to continue PDS (Public Distribution System) for other 45 lakh ration card holders comprising priority and non-priority households," he said.
The meeting was informed that work on end to end computerization and digitization of data and printing of new ration cards are in the advance stage of completion for effective implementation of NFSA.
The District Development Commissioners and officers of CA&PD Department attended the meeting. |
