GUWAHATI: Assam government to launch ‘free sugar’ scheme meant for about 6 lakh beneficiaries among tea garden workers in the state by January end next year.
Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal while reviewing the functioning of the Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Department at his conference room at Janata Bhawan here on Friday asked the department totake appropriate measures for launching the free sugar distribution scheme to tea garden population in the state and hold the launch meeting of the scheme towards last week of January next year.
He also directed the Department to look for means to safely dispose the plastic bags containing sugar without causing environmental harm. Notably, Around 6 lakh beneficiaries would be benefitted by free sugar distribution scheme in the tea garden areas where each beneficiary would receive a packet of 2 kg each per month.
Chief Minister Sonowal called on the department to spread the right message about the scheme through which the State Government would strive to fulfil nutritional requirements lacking in the diets of tea garden population.
Appreciating the target of 3 lakh 62 thousand metric tonne (MT) of paddy procurement next year in the state by the department, Sonowal directed for video recording the farmers’ stories whose paddy would be procured by the government with good prices and release those videos in social media platforms lso that other farmers would get inspiration to work hard and produce more. Among other agencies, Food Corporation of India (FCI) alone has set a target of procuring 2 lakh MT paddy from state farmers.
In view of the spiralling onion prices and prevailing market conditions, the Chief Minister instructed for taking pre-emptive action for keeping the prices of the essential kitchen commodity under control next year by contacting agencies like National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd (NAFED) and National Federation of Farmers’ Procurement, Processing and Retailing Cooperatives of India Ltd. (NACOF) etc. for procuring onions from Nasik on state government’s behalf and stock it for sending to state later.