Jakhar flays govt for ‘failing’ to deliver on wheat subsidy
Monday, 27/07/2015
http://www.indiapress.org/gen/news.php/The_Tribune/
Abohar : Leader of the Opposition Sunil Jakhar today alleged that the state government had been footing bills worth crores of rupees to arrange lavish meetings with global corporate players with negligible response, but had failed to spend Rs 75 crore under the subsidised “Re 1 per kg wheat” scheme.
Slamming the SAD-BJP government for “backtracking” on claims to provide wheat at Re 1 per kg to Blue Card-holders, he said the cash-strapped government had been unable to distribute ‘dal’ for the past 15 months and now, faced an uphill task of distributing 72,51,000 quintals of wheat to about 31 lakh card-holders.
He alleged the government had not distributed subsidised wheat under the National Food Security Act for the past 10 months and now asked beneficiaries to pay Rs 2 instead of Re 1 for each kg.
He said the UPA government had in 2013 launched the scheme under AICC president Sonia Gandhi’s advice, which sought to cover 50 per cent of urban and 75 per cent of the rural populace. He said the state government tampered with the soul of the Food Security Mission by “directing officials to follow the diktats of the halqa in charges and jathedars” in issuing the cards. This deprived lakhs of eligible persons and benefitted political followers of the ruling alliance, he alleged.
Jakhar demanded that the distribution system be streamlined and new cards be prepared for the left-out eligible families.
