Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, Sept 5: The National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013, to be implemented in state November 1, will initially cover 14 districts, said Food supplies and consumer welfare secretary (FS&CW) Madhusudan Padhi Saturday.
The proposed food security programme, to be implemented in two phases, would cover Angul, Bargarh, Bolangir, Boudh, Deogarh, Gajapati, Jharsuguda, Kalahandi, Kandhamal, Malkangiri, Nuapada, Sambalpur, Subarnapur and Koraput districts in the first phase.
Earlier, the state government had set a deadline of October 1, 2015 for implementation of the Act. However, the state administration has found that at least 20 lakh ineligible applicants’ names have not been deleted from the list of beneficiaries and decided to extend the deadline to November 1, 2015.
Meanwhile, in a letter addressed to all district collectors, the Food secretary said, “The 14 districts are required to complete all basic formalities including data updation by September 14, 2015 and publication of final priority list by September 15, 2015.”
He further said ration cards will be distributed to the beneficiaries of the districts to be covered under phase I (from November 1) by October 10, 2015.
As per the government decision, NFSA implementation in the remaining 16 districts will be taken up in the second phase.
Padhi asked all collectors to ensure publication of final priority list for second phase by September 25, 2015 and distribution of ration cards by October 31. The date for implementation of the programme in phase II would be fixed accordingly.
As per the Central norm, the NFSA programme would cater to the needs of 3.26crore individuals in the state. However, implementation of the programme in the state has been delayed as 394 lakh names of beneficiaries were digitised out of 419 lakh enumerated in 2011 census in the state, thus making it a difficult task for the state to publish the exact list of beneficiaries within the deadline.
The state government has set five inclusion and nine exclusion criteria for individuals to become NFSA beneficiaries.
The FS&CW department has so far expunged at least 52 lakh ineligible applicants from the list of beneficiaries.