Fayaz Bukhari
SRINAGAR, Aug 27: Cutting across the party lines, the legislators today passed a resolution in the Legislative Assembly asking the Government to provide 35 kilograms of ration to each family at the rate of Rs two per kilogram within two months.
The legislators of ruling coalition of National Conference and Congress and opposition People’s Democratic Party, Bhartiya Janta Party, National Panthers Party (NPP) and Independents voted for the resolution despite opposition by the Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution Minister, Chaudhary Mohammad Ramzan.
Ramzan while opposing the resolution said that it will put huge burden of Rs 6, 000 crore on the State exchequer and said Government has no money. He urged the legislators for withdrawing of the resolution and its amendments but the CPI(M) MLA M Y Tarigami, who had moved the resolution in the House and PDP MLAs, Nizamudin Bhat and Choudhry Zulfikar who sought amendments to the resolution pressed for it and speaker asked for voice vote.
The Private Member’s resolution was adopted by a voice vote after several members spoke on the need for providing the ration through public distribution system.
MLA M Y Tarigami, who had moved the resolution in the House, said the ration at present was being provided according to the figures of 2001 Census. He called for providing ration according to the latest Census figures as the population had increased over the past decade.
Ramzan said that Government can’t provide ration as per the latest census as Government of India provides them the ration as per the 2001 census. He said that beyond 99 lakh population, State has to be procure ration at Rs 26 per kilogramme. The Government is not in a position to purchase ration for 26 lakh people of the State at Rs 26 per kg and provide them same at the rate of Rs 2 per kg. He said that 5.17 lakh families have no ration cards in the State and around 26 lakh people are not provided ration.
The Minister said the National Food Security Act has come into force in July last year and the coverage determined for Jammu and Kashmir is 63.55 per cent in rural areas and 47.10 per cent for urban areas, which works out to 74.13 lakh population.
“Although the State has taken various preparatory measures for implementation of the said Act in the State, it has not been implemented in the State because of the fact that only 74.13 lakh population comes under its coverage if implemented in its present form, thereby meaning that a large section of the society would be left out of preview of subsidized ration,” Ramzan said.
The Minister said that matter for enhancement of coverage under NFSA has already been taken up with the Union Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and the final decision about the issue is yet to be received.
“Since the provision of providing the food grains at the rate of Rs 2.00 in respect of Atta and Rs 3.00 in respect of Rice has been kept in the Act, therefore, once the Act is implemented, the State shall be able to provide the ration to the eligible households by covering the population of census 2011 at these rates,” he added.
Earlier, the Minister told some of the legislators from NPP and BJP who were vocal in their support for the resolution that in Jammu division there are 80, 000 fake ration cards including 49, 000 in Jammu district.
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