Former CM urge govt to provide rice to the poor for free

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaApril 8, 2020

 Leader of Opposition Mukul Sangma on Wednesday urged the state government to implement the Centre’s decision of providing rice free of cost to the poor people in the state.

In his letter to the chief secretary MS Rao, Sangma said the spike in price of the essential commodities, particularly rice, is a matter of serious concern.

“Poor families with limited cash in hand do not have money anymore and it is difficult to quantify such families in distress across the state,” he said.

Sangma said the MLA’s sincere attempt to distribute rice out of the limited earmarked amount from SRWP is also confronted by non-availability of rice in the godowns of wholesale dealers/stockists and escalated pricing in the market.

“It will be appropriate, therefore, if the assistance…(by) providing of 5kg of rice per person for 3 months and 1kg of pulses per household can be implemented immediately,” the former chief minister suggested.

According to the measures announced by the Government of India in respect of 21 days lockdown to arrest the transmission chain of the COVID-19, each poor will get 5kg grains per person per month for the next 3 months for free, 1kg of pulses for each household for free.

This will be over and above the current 5kg they get under NFSA and this will benefit 80 crores Indians.

Meanwhile, the leader of opposition said inputs also indicate that the demand-supply gap of rice can be addressed to reasonable extent if milling of rice in Assam, in rice mills which were shut down, is allowed to resume with appropriate precautionary measures. He suggested that the same may be taken up with the counterpart.