press trust of india, New Delhi, June 13: Jharkhand has decided to roll out the National Food Security Act from July 1 in eight districts, taking the total number of states and Union Territories that have so far implemented this law to 13.
“We have given permission to Jharkhand to implement the Food law in eight districts in the first phase. The state has put in place all necessary infrastructure to implement the food scheme in these districts,” food minister Ram Vilas Paswan said after meeting Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das.
Das informed Paswan that the state had completed all the formalities for the food law in the eight districts. The Centre will start allocating food grains in these districts at Rs1-3/kg.
Paswan said the Chief Minister has given the assurance that the state will complete the preparedness in the remaining 16 districts by August-end so that the scheme can be launched from September 1.
The food law was passed by the Parliament in September 2013 when the UPA was in power.
At present, 12 states/UTs – Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Delhi, Chandigarh and West Bengal – have implemented the Act, some of them fully and others partially.
The deadline for implementing the same has been extended thrice, with the latest one being in September.
The law aims to provide legal entitlement of 5 kg of subsidised food grains per person per month at Rs1-3/kg to two-thirds of the country’s population.
At present, the Centre is allocating food grains to 11 states/UTs as per the new food law while the rest are getting food grain quota according to earlier PDS guidelines.
