JOIN USCoronavirus lockdown: Hundreds of villagers block road in Bengal alleging no food supply
Several hundred villagers staged a road blockade in West Bengal’s Murshidabad district on Wednesday.
The protesters alleged that they have not got food for more than two weeks.
The road blockade staged on the Berhampore-Domkal state highway was withdrawn after the state administration intervened and assured the protesters of a steady supply of food grains and other necessary edibles.
According to sources in the state administration, there was a lacuna in distributing food supplies to locals below the poverty line under the Public Distribution System. Each ration cardholder is entitled to get five kg of rice and flour per month.
Locals said that majority of protesters were neither wearing nor maintaining social distancing.
The development comes at a time when the state government has repeatedly assured that there was no shortage of food grains in West Bengal.
“There is enough stock of food grains in the state to last till September. There is no need to panic,” State’s Food and Supplies Minister Jyotipriyo Mullick said earlier this month.