Senior Congress leader and former Consumers Affairs and Public Distribution Taj Mohi-u-din today said the PDP-BJP government did not apply their mind while National Food Security Act was directly implemented in the state.
Taj told KNS that the Act was against the daily food habits of the people in the state.“As per our eating habits, a daily rice eater consumes 400 grams of rice grains, which totals to 12 kgs a months. And as per the Act a person will get 5 kgs of rice per months. So, a consumer has to buy remaining 7 kgs from market,” Taj said.“I say this because I was the CAPD minister in the state. The previous government did not keep these things in consideration and directly implemented the Act,” the Congress leader told KNS.
He said that the due to the Act the state government has to annually buy food grains from private market which will cost the exchequer a whopping amount of Rs 600 crore per year. “Can we bear such a huge cost due to the food law. Now we can’t,” he said.He said that he had told the former CAPD minister Choudhary Zulfikar that the Act will not benefit the state.
“Zulfikar assured me that the Centre government will increase the scale of the ration under the act. But that did not happen,” he said.“NFSA is a direct law and the state cannot amend it. The previous government did not discuss it in the Assembly, and just giving a nod to the Act in cabinet will not mean that it can be implemented here,” he said, adding that it was an arbitrary decision of the PDP-BJP government. (KNS)