Maharashtra Govt. decision to cancel 3 million ration card is part of central Govt. conspiracy to keep away BPL families from food security scheme

Maharashtra Govt. decision to cancel 3 million ration card is part of central Govt. conspiracy to keep away BPL families away from food security scheme: VJAS

Nagpur –April 20, 2010

Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS) activist group fighting for “Right to food” that anntodaya scheme for every tribal and poor under BPL families in Maharashtra and has moved Mumbai high court Nagpur bench and Maharashtra Human Right Commission (MHRC) and successfully got included all kolam tribals of Maharashtra in anntodya and got the direction from MHRC to have fresh survey of BPL families in the Maharashtra has strongly opposed the cancellation of 3 million ration cards by the deptt of Food and Civil Supplies and termed it as big conspiracy deprived the majority of poor from coming right to food policy or extended anntodaya scheme providing subsidies ration to BPL families ,kishor tiwari president Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti(VJAS) informed in press release today..

“The recent survey done by the state government which has revealed that 3 million bogus ration cards in the state as bogus is hoax as survey is stage managed show and it was done by fair price shop owner and people at large even elected public representative were not involved in this survey” Tiwari alleged .

‘We have concrete evidence that ,it was pre decided by the Food and Civil Supplies Department to delete 3 million BPL families from PDS list and final suver says taht there are 29.45 lakh bogus ration cards in the state, of which 6.5 lakh are in Mumbai alone. Pune, on the other hand, has 3.87 lakh bogus cards. Thane (1.01 lakh), Ahmednagar (1.59 lakh) and Nashik (2.25 lakh) have also reported more than one lakh bogus ration cards.this is fishy when planning commission is saying that on all India basis there is rise in BPL families by more than one 12 million then it’s ridiculous on the part Maharashtra to drop down the BPL families drastically .according to 2002 BPL survey there are more than 6.6.milion families are covered under PDS and if anybody is claiming that 3 million are ration cards issued earlier are bogus then it’s obvious that Maharashtra state is trying to keep away at least 50% BPL families out of reach of news subsidies food scheme .we want resurvey by third party and final decision of cancellation of ration card after that” Tiwari urged.

In rural Maharashtra most of tribal and dalit who are dry land farmers or land less farmers are not covered under food supply of PDS scheme and food grain and kerosene allotted to poors are diverted in the open market hence universal PDS scheme with transparent distribution channel is must and VJAS has welcome the smartcard and GRPS system introduction in PDS initiated by the Deptt., press release added.

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