SHILLONG: The Meghalaya Legislative Assembly Committee wants the state government to engage more persons to certify families falling under the BPL category so as to ensure that the underprivileged ones are not deprived of free COVID-19 tests.
The demand comes subsequent to Deputy Chief Minister, Prestone Tynsong, declaring that people wanting to undergo tests for COVID-19 in Meghalaya will have to bear the cost themselves as the state government has decided to levy charges, in view of the central government and the ICMR withdrawing subsidised testing kits.
It was, however, mentioned by the deputy chief minister that people falling under the BPL category, besides the high-risk contacts, will be exempted as they are being monitored by the District Surveillance Teams.
Referring to the government decision, the Committee said it was concerned because in a city like Shillong, where cases are on the surge, half of the population is not covered under National Food Security Act (NFSA).
Chairperson of the Committee, Ampareen Lyngdoh, held a meeting with the Secretary of the Food and Civil Supply department on Thursday, following which she expressed disconcertment over only half of city’s population being covered under the NFSA and non-NFSA schemes.
With regard to the Centre sanctioning many schemes for the state under Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan for release of food grains, Lyngdoh said total rural coverage under non-NFSA scheme is 77.79 per cent while the urban coverage is mere 50.87 per cent.
She said the Committee, during the meeting, also became privy to the fact that a total of 21,45,015 families in the state have benefitted from the rice scheme of the government so far while under chana scheme, 42,130 beneficiaries have been covered.
The Committee also took cognizance of the fact that as many as 57,083 applications for inclusion under NFSA, including 11,108 applications from East Khasi Hills alone, is yet to be processed since 2016. “We have asked the department to fast-track the pending applications that have remained unattended since 2016,” Lyngdoh said.
The department also apprised the committee that deletion of names from the current list is still pending and number of NFSA and non-NFSA cards remained unclaimed.