In the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha rolled out 'Prime Minister’s Food Supplementation for Priority Households Scheme' to strengthen food security for marginal sections of society for the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
Interacting with media persons, the Lt Governor said the scheme would ensure accessibility, affordability and availability of adequate quantity of food to Priority Households.
He said presently under Antyodaya Anna Yojana, 35 kg food grains per household is provided to 2.29 lakh households in the UT benefitting the poorest of the poor and 5 kg food grains per person to Priority Households (PHH) beneficiaries are provided free of cost.
The Lt Governor said, currently, in PHH Category, there are 14.32 Lakh Ration Card holders with around 57.24 lakh beneficiaries in J&K. He maintained that the new scheme will augment the monthly food availability to PHH category on a subsidized rate while ensuring that it does not exceed 35 kg per household.
He informed that the augmentation was discontinued last year after the Open Market Sale Scheme (OMSS-D) run by the Government of India was discontinued.
He said it has now been revived at a revised price and in order to remove the financial burden of poor families and ensure access to food and nutritional security, a new scheme has been launched.
Under the new scheme, a PHH with one beneficiary will get an additional allocation of 5 kg and a PHH with beneficiaries ranging from 2-5 will get an additional 10 kg, each month while maintaining maximum allocation per household.
For the additional allocation, J&K Government will procure the rice from the Government of India at 34 rupees per kg and it will be provided to the beneficiaries at 25 rupees per kg, thus ensuring a subsidy of nine rupees per kg.
The new scheme will incur a financial implication of over 180 crore rupees a year. The Lt Governor also said that as and when the Government of India restarts the sale of wheat under OMSS (D), the UT administration will include wheat in the scheme.
