The Hindu: Orissa: Sunday, April 10, 2016.
The Odisha government has messed up implementation of the National Food Security Act (NFSA) with thousands of deserving poor beneficiaries waiting for months to be provided ration cards, alleged civil society organisations here on Friday.
“As per information made available under the RTI Act, by January 2016, the State government had already identified 2.98 crore beneficiaries. The government in different forum also claimed to have included 8 lakh new beneficiaries in February and March. Against these claims, we have failed to understand as to how huge numbers of applications are pending in different districts,” said Food Security Campaign convenor Pradip Pradhan at a press conference here.
Mr. Pradhan said: “The selection of beneficiaries and distribution of ration cards could have been completed much before. But it seems thousands of fake beneficiaries, including rich and powerful cadres of the ruling political party, still continue to figure in the list. At the same time, poorer people remain outside the NFSA scheme.”
“The State government issued notification to file their grievances at the State Food Commission in the month of January. During the past three months, approximately 1,000 applications have been submitted to the Commission while not a single case has been disposed,” he alleged.
The Government is yet to frame rules for providing food security allowances to beneficiaries who would not be provided food commodities under the NFS Act, Sachikant Pradhan said, adding that no step had been taken to give maternity benefit of Rs.6,000 to pregnant and lactating women under section 4 of the NFS-2013.
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