Food security: Delhi seeks to cover 5 lakh people

Over five lakh families in Delhi will be provided foodgrain initially under the food security programme which will be launched here on August 20, the birth anniversary of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Chief minister Sheila Dikshit on Thursday held a meeting with the top brass of her government to finalise modalities to select the beneficiaries.

Top officers, who attended the meeting, said the scheme will be implemented in two phases. In the first phase a total of 5.21 lakh families will be provided foodgrain.

In the first phase, all the BPL families, Above Poverty Line (APL) ration card holders and beneficiaries under Antodaya Anna Yojna will be included. The city government has also decided to include homeless people, daily wage earners, rag pickers, people living in resettlement colonies and slum clusters in the first phase implementation of the scheme.

An officer said the second and final phase of implementation of the scheme will be launched in February next year.

He said the beneficiaries of Annashree Yojna, who are getting a monthly cash subsidy of Rs 600, are likely to be kept out in the first phase.

In a meeting, Dikshit directed chief secretary D M Spolia and the food and civil supplies department to complete all the ground work for launching the scheme.

The chief minister will give a presentation about Delhi government’s preparation to implement the scheme at a meeting Congress Chief Sonia Gandhi will hold with party chief ministers on July 13.

President Pranab Mukherjee had signed the Ordinance on Friday that will give the nation’s three-fourth population the right to get 5 kg of foodgrain every month at highly subsidised rates of Rs 1-3 per kg.

A kg of rice will be supplied at Rs 3 while wheat and coarse cereals will be given at Rs 2 and Rs 1 per kg respectively under the programme.

However, about 2.43 crore poorest of the poor families covered under the PDS would continue to get 35 kg of grains per family per month but with legal entitlement.