Recently, the State Cabinet gave its nod to the application of National Food Security Act to J&K State. Though the Act has been passed by the Parliament long back, but the previous Government had reservations in implementing it. As a result, some sections of population, especially in remote and far off corners of the State, had occasionally to face shortage of supply of good grains. The problem was that while not agreeing to the implementation of the NFSA in the State, the previous Government wanted the Centre to supply food grains to the State on the basis of Census 2011. This was not acceptable to the Centre and a logjam appeared with direct adverse impact on economically weaker and marginalized segments of population. The PDP-led Coalition Government addressed the issue very seriously, and resolved the deadlock by agreeing to implement the NFSA. Almost all sections of people in the state hailed the decision of the Government. In particular, the BPL and other marginalized sections felt happy that this would put an end to their woes.
However, just announcing that the Act would be made applicable to the State was not enough. The more important part is that of implementing it on the ground. The Government has decided to begin its implementation from Febraury1, 2016. It means it has barely a month and half to complete all formalities and pre-requisites within a period of a month and half. Consequently, the Food Department has moved fast. While the Government of India has decided to provide 2.71 lakh metric tons of additional food gains to the State, the State Government will be constituting Food Commission to over see the implementation of the NFSA and the entire project so that new format of rationing and ration supplies stabilizes.
Food Department has launched the massive drive of issuing new ration cards after due scrutiny to 1.19 crore people of the State in accordance with the figures presented by the Census Report 2011. The implementation of the Act in the State makes the Government responsible for providing food grains to the people without exception. If somebody is not provided with food grains, he will be duly compensated through an inbuilt mechanism of the act which is termed as food security allowance. We should remember that the State has, in the past, suffered serious natural calamities like floods, fire, earthquakes and crop failures. These calamities have had very harsh impact on the poor people as they are unable to get food in such circumstances. Now that the Act is in place, it should be possible for the Government to keep adequate stores in reserve for any exigency.
People in the State have welcomed the decision of the Government to reform the rationing system and bring it at level with the Census Report of 2011. By and large all people of the State will be the beneficiaries of the new arrangement. It will go a long way in securing food supply to the far off nooks and corner of the State which hitherto suffered owing to disruption in timely supply of food grains. The poor, destitute, slum dwellers, wage earners all will be benefitted by the new system.
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel