Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, July 15: The Congress party spokesperson Meem Afzal said that the Government is not in a position to provide subsidy on sugar to ration card holders due to low production of sugar-cane in Haryana and other States, and consequently closing down of scores of sugar manufacturing industries.
“Farmers in the country have stopped sugar-cane farming due to low market value of their produce and that affected production of sugar. Thus Government was compelled to lift subsidy on it,” Afzal told media persons at the Congress party headquarters here.
Afzal said that sensing the continuous worries about sugar production in the country, the Government has already stopped export of sugar and started importing it from countries like Pakistan.
Briefing the media on the ‘Food Security Ordinance’, he described it as a welfare scheme that provides food grains and nutritional security at affordable prices for 67 percent of the population.
“The bill will cover 50 percent of urban population and 75 percent rural population, which is about 81crore of the total population of the country, and rice, wheat and millets will be supplied to them for Rs 3, 2, 1 respectively a month,” he said.
He said it will also give benefit to pregnant women, their children and school going children upto class 8.
Lashing out at Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, Afzal claimed Congress Parliamentarian Ajay Maken has provided figures and facts which testify Modi’s Gujarat lags far behind in education, sports and other fields. “BJP runs on twitter and social networking sites only, they are confused party,” he added.
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