From Our Correspondent
Agartala: Terming the government move providing rice at Rs. 2 per kg to poor people as calbazzi , Congress on Thursday alleged large quantity of PDS rice worth crores of money is being ‘stolen’ at the behest of Chief Minister Manik Sarkar.
The government has been saving PDS rice worth Rs. 47.74 crore yearly as 15 percent ration card holders don’t collect their quota from their respective ration shops, said opposition leader Ratan Lal Nath at a press conference at Congress Bhavan.
The state has 9, 72,917 ration card holders and of which 6, 63,066 cards were identified as BPL category.
Not only sa ving of huge quantity of rice for not being collected by consumers, rice worth Rs. 21.04 crore was saved annually as that number of bogus ration cards stands at 43849. Nailing the Chief Minister further, Nath alleged the government has also been earning huge money under off take category according to the economic review of the state government.
Referring to the state government’s decision, he pointed out it was Congress which had promised to provide rice to the consumers at a price of Rs. 2 per kg in the last Assembly election. “That time, the ruling front had opposed the move but now sensing the tough battle ahead it virtually picked up the Congress promise”, he said.
Noting that the government decision was nothing but a calbazzi ahead of the election, Nath said the Congress led UPA government has already initiated a move to provide PDC rice at subsidized price to poor people under Food Security Act.
Bhowmik condemned the Jirania incident in which several party workers were injured by CPM cadres.