Food security: Uttar Pradesh to scrap district-wise quota, cover more eligible families
Aiming to bring parity across districts and cover more eligible families, the Uttar Pradesh government has decided to abolish the existing district-wise quota of beneficiaries under the National Food Security Act (NFSA).
While the Centre has fixed a state-wise quota—with separate rural and urban coverage limits—Uttar Pradesh has been following a district-wise cap on the number of beneficiaries. This district-specific allocation often resulted in imbalances. For example, prosperous districts like Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Meerut in western U.P. received a disproportionately higher share, depriving other districts of their fair entitlement.
'We are going to eliminate the district-wise quota of beneficiaries under NFSA and the work in this regard has already begun to ensure eligible beneficiaries in comparatively poorer districts are not deprived of the benefits due to them,' principal secretary, food and civil supplies, Ranvir Prasad said, speaking to HT.
The Central government has fixed the population coverage under NFSA at 64.46% in rural areas and 78.54% in cities and allocates the food grain to the state, accordingly -- 7.6 lakh MT of wheat or rice every month to cater to the need of over 3.60 crore families with over 14 crore members.
Additional commissioner, food and civil supplies, Satyadev said that the work to increase the share of some needy districts has begun.
'For example, we have recently added 5,000 new beneficiaries each in Sitapur, Barabanki and Lalitpur by deleting the number from Ghaziabad and Gautam Buddha Nagar,' he said.
He said NFSA coverage in all the seven districts in Bundelkhand was being raised to 90% and 85% in all the deserving districts in eastern UP.
'However, the overall limit for the state will remain the same as fixed under the NFSA that is 64.465% for cities and 78.54% for villages. This limit cannot be raised at all,' he said,
Officials said doing away with the district-wise cap will enable the state to redistribute entitlements more equitably, strictly adhering to eligibility norms and actual population figures.
The restructuring is expected to benefit backward and underserved districts, where many eligible families were left out due to the artificial ceilings imposed by the district quota system.
Meanwhile, the department of the food and civil supplies has been placed fourth in disposing of complaints received on the chief minister's IGRS (Integrated Grievance Redressal System portal) as per the report for the month of April.
'Ours has been found to be the fourth best department, after the khadi and village industries, the cooperative and excise in terms of disposal of public grievances on the IGRS portal in April,' Satyadev claimed.
The department of industries and infrastructure development, the housing and urban planning, the environment and climate change and women welfare are said to be among the bottom four departments.
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