Include Left-Out Beneficiaries Under FSA, Govt Tells Collectors

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha State Food Commission has asked the district collectors to include the left-out beneficiaries in the new list under the Food Security Act.

In a letter on Saturday, retired IAS officer and chairman of the Odisha State Food Commission Rangalal Jamuda said several new beneficiaries are deprived of ration cards as their names are not included in the new list of beneficiaries under the FSA. He asked the collectors to urgently take up the matter and include these new beneficiaries.

Jamuda further said that out of nearly 64,000 applications, 51,785 of seven districts have been considered in the last 2-3 months. But the collectors of these districts have not informed this to the Commission.

He asked the collectors to consider the remaining applications by September 30 this year.

Asked about the matter, Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare minister Surya Narayan Patro on Friday said the collectors should not be blamed.

“At present, we don’t have the required number of the ration cards to provide to the beneficiaries whose number has gone up with the rise in the population in our state. When the new beneficiaries are applying for ration cards and the block officials, after verifying these applications, are sending these to the district collectors. But the district collectors are not able to recommend as the ration cards earmarked for the district have exhausted. Considering the above, the state government has come up with its own Food Security Act to provide ration cards to the new beneficiaries,” Patro pointed out.