Bhubaneswar, Sept 5: State Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Minister Surya Narayan Patro Wednesday told the state assembly that the state government will allocate an additional Rs 81.06 crore in the supplementary budget to implement the new state scheme on food security.
The minister was replying to an unstarred question by the Debgarh MLA Nitish Ganga Deb as to whether the state government has planned to utilize its own fund to launch a state scheme on food security and how much funds had been placed in the budget for the purpose.
In his response, the minister in a written statement said, “The state government is going to implement a new scheme named as ‘State Food Security Scheme’ in the state by utilizing its own funds from October 2, 2018. An additional amount of Rs 81.06 crore shall be allocated during supplementary stage of the state budget for the current financial year of 2018-19.”
While defending the need of a state scheme for food security, the minister in another reply to a question on the issue raised by BJP MLA KV Singh Deo, said, “As per the 2011 Census data, the rate of growth of population was 14% in the last decade. If the data is extrapolated, then in 2018, the population of the state has increased by 10.22% compared to 2011. Due to increase in population there are some eligible beneficiaries who need to be provided food security coverage.”
The minister also added that it was therefore necessary to reach out to the poor, distressed and eligible left out beneficiaries of the state who are not covered under the National Food Security Act.
The state government is planning to include 25 lakh individual targets for coverage under the state food security schemes. As per statistics, the state was as per the NFSA 2013 given a target of 3,26,41,800 people while the state as of now was able to cover 2,22,45,525 members under the scheme.