CM’s food grain efforts bear fruit

CM’s food grain efforts bear fruit

Ataullah Faizan

Bhopal, June 2, 2011

     Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has been demanding for years at different times to allot food grains according to the number of BPL families in the state. Now his efforts have proved successful with the allotment of food grains by the Central Government for families living below poverty line (BPL) in the state, reports SMS News and Features.

It may be mentioned that the Central Government has recently allotted an additional quota of 3 lakh 16 thousand metric tonnes of food grains for BPL families. The additional food grains allotted will be sufficient for the first five months of the present financial year and for the remaining seven months, seven lakh metric tonnes more food grains would be needed.

Another satisfying factor is that the Central Government has lauded the State Government for advance lifting of food grains. In view of this, it has been assured that to meet the demands of the state, the central government would allot more food grains even from the quota of other states.

      With the additional quota of food grains received from the Central Government, for the time being, it has become possible for the state government to distribute 35 kg of food grains per ration card to 67 lakh families living below the poverty line. Therefore, the state government has decided to give ration for four months at a time to these families.

      Significantly, the Central Government had released the additional quota of three lakh 16 thousand metric tons of food grains on an ad hoc basis. The state government wanted the Central Government to release food grains for these families on a regular basis.

      In fact, the Central Government has lauded the system of the state for advance lifting of the allotted food grains during the last two and half years. On this ground the Central Government has assured the state that its doors will remain open in future also for providing an additional quota of food grains. This would be allotted of the quota fixed for other states provided the state government continues to implement its policy of advance lifting.

      This major success has been possible due to sustained and constant efforts of Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan Whenever he met the Union Ministers and even the Prime Minister,  Chouhan always put this demand before them stressing that all the actual families of this class should be provided adequate food grains. He had written several letters to the Central Government appealing to take immediate action on this humanitarian and sensitive issue. The Minister of State for Food and Civil Supplies  Paras Chand Jain also wrote to the Central Government and met the Union Ministers at New Delhi and appealed for the same. At the meeting of the Food Ministers of different states held at Mumbai two months ago,  Jain had demanded to release sufficient food grains for the families of BPL , even though it was not in the agenda of the meeting.