After eight months of refusing to implement the Centre’s flagship National Food Security Act (NFSA) in the state, the Mufti Mohammad Sayeed-led PDP-BJP ruling coalition has now decided to adopt it in Jammu and Kashmir.
“We have decided to implement NFSA in Jammu and Kashmir soon,” Minister for Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution Chowdhary Zulfikar Ali said on Saturday.
He said under the Act, five kilograms of foodgrain would be given per person at subsidised rates.
NFSA was one of the flagship programmes of the previous UPA-II government, introduced in 2013. However, then J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who was heading the National Conference-Congress coalition government in the state, refused to implement it on the ground that it was not beneficial to the people.
Immediately after taking over as CM, Mufti had also expressed his resolve not to implement NFSA, citing the same reason.
“We have studied the scheme and found it is not beneficial to the people of this State. So, there is no need to implement,” Mufti had said in the Upper House of the J&K Legislature on March 25.
However, in August this year, the state government formed a committee headed by then Principal Secretary, Planning and Development, B R Sharma, to study the scheme.
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