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| Opposition grills govt over food shortage | | PDP stages walkout | |
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Mar 25: The ruling National Conference led coalition had a tough time in the Lower House of the State Legislature today when the vociferous Opposition assisted by some of its (NC) legislators grilled it over shortage of food supplies and "defective" Below Poverty Line (BPL) lists.
The main Opposition, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) also staged a walkout from the House after resorting to massive sloganeering against the coalition government. Besides, the House also witnessed verbal spat between National Conference and PDP with former accusing the Opposition of creating "unnecessary issues".
It all began when the Minister for Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution (CAPD) Department, Qamar Ali Akhoon was replying to a clubbed question of PDP legislators, Mehbooba Mufti and Abdul Haq Khan during question hour this morning. On behalf of Mehbooba Mufti, who was not present in the House, Abdul Rehman Veeri raised her question.
The Minister informed that the State requires about 1,32,000 MTs of food grains per month as per Governments scale against allocation of 63067 MTs per month thereby leaving a gap of about 52 per cent in the demand for food grains under Public Distribution System (PDS).
"Under Targeted Public Distribution System since 1997 about 18.02 lakh families have been adopted for rations at Central scale of 35 kg (rice/wheat) per family per month by the Central government as per projected population figures of the year 2000 for the State. However, additional about 1.58 lakh ration cards have been added in the State which have not been adopted by Central government," Akhoon said.
Reacting to the Minister's statement, Haq Khan asked, "How would the State government cope up this 52 per cent gap problem?"
Akhoon, however, informed the House, "The matter was taken up at various levels with Central government. The Centre has allocated about 1, 65, 936 MTs of additional food grains at higher rates to the State under Open Market Sale Scheme-Domestic (OMSS-D) scheme and Adhoc allocation.
Dissatisfied with the Minister's reply, the Opposition members accused the Government of failing to redress the grievances of poor people in the State and questioned the creditability of the government.
"The government has completely failed to implement even its announcement of 11 kilograms head ration. The situation would be alarming in coming years," Veeri shouted.
The Speaker, Mohammad Akbar Lone tried to defend the Minister saying he has done commendable job to bring accountability in the Public Distribution System. "This issue has already been discussed in this House and the Minister is trying to improve the system. No doubt flaws are there in the functioning which needs more time," the Speaker asserted.
It, however, failed to yield positive results with the Opposition members continuing to create uproar in the House. All the PDP members rushed towards the front row and shouted slogans against the government.
Countering the allegations of the Opposition parties, the Chief Whip of the ruling National Conference, Mubarak Gul said, "The opposition legislators don't have issue and are creating unnecessary hurdles. While the Minister has given the answer in detail, they are still making unwarranted issue."
Gul's remarks further added to anger of the Opposition that exchanged heated arguments with the former.
Amid uproar and pandemonium, Hakeem Mohammad Yaseen remarked, "It is not true that the ration is being supplied as per the census of 2001. It is still being supplied according to 90's census. The State is being provided nearly 3 lakh MTs ration against the demand of 6 lakh MTs."
NC legislator, Nazir Ahmed Gurezi said, "In Gurez constituency, about 90 per cent people belong to BPL category. I want to ask the government whether it has any proposal of enhancing the ration quota of these BPL families."
Expressing concern over shortage of ration, M Y Tarigami said, "This House should adopt a resolution and unanimously ask the Central government to increase the ration quota of Jammu and Kashmir so that the people don't suffer."
Senior NC legislator, Mir Saifullah questioned the functioning of the CAPD department and said, "Since the people had been facing the ration crisis for the last one year, the department has excluded some items from the category of ration. It seems that sugar, Atta and Kerosene oil are not in the list of ration and rice is the only commodity which falls in ration category."
Leader of BJP Legislature Party, Chaman Lal Gupta also castigated the government for failing to restore smooth supply of ration. He alleged that only 30 kg ration is being supplied to a family as against the decided 35 kg per family.
In the meantime, after a brief protest near the Well of the House, the members staged a walk out from the House.
Later, the Minister said, "If the House wants to adopt an resolution seeking enhancement of ration quota from the Central government, all the legislators should unanimously adopt it. The State government would definitely approach the Central government for increasing the ration quota."
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