All eligible poor in the state will be granted new ration cards and the exercise to replace the existing old ration cards with new cards has started. Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu has already directed the Civil Supplies Department to take steps to distribute sugar, pulses and other essential commodities at subsidized prices along with rice every month.
He also directed to pay the farmers who have sold grain to the government within 48 hours as per the support price. The department is already working to revive `Chandranna Sankranti’, Christmas gifts and `Chandranna Ramzan Tofa’ schemes for every family having ration cards in the state.
Officials of the department have estimated that the additional burden towards festival gifts will be Rs 2,690 crore for five years at the rate of Rs. 538 crores per year. Earlier, when the Telugu Desam government (2014-19) gave gifts for Sankranti, Christmas and Ramzan festivals every year.
However, as soon as coming to power YS Jaganmohan Reddy had ruthlessly stopped all these gifts. At present there are 1,48,43,671 ration cards in the state. In this there are more than 12 lakh Muslim card holders. Apart from this, the CM ordered the officials to take steps to provide free rice to the ration card holders under the regular quota every month, along with sugar, pulses, wheat flour, sorghum, and cereals.
Although there are currently 1.48 crore ration cards in the state, out of which only 90 lakh ration cards are under BPL. The Center is giving concessions under the Food Security Act towards those cards only. The state government has to bear the cost of subsidies on the remaining 58 lakh cards.
The state government has been clamoring for a long time to bring all the ration cards in the state under the Food Security Act, but the Center is not agreeing. Moreover, more than 90 percent of the people in the state have come under the BPL list due to giving cards to all the people of their choice regardless of poverty.
With this, the Jagan government, which had promised to grant new cards, gave up. While there were 1.47 crore ration cards in the state by the time the YCP government came, it has increased to 1.48 crore in the last five years. This means that in the last five years, the newly issued cards are only 1.10 lakh.
About 78,000 applications for new cards are pending. Also, a total of 3.36 lakh applications for additions and changes in ration cards are pending for almost a year. Along with these pending applications, the new government has to take a policy decision on the issue of granting new cards to newly married couples and all eligible families.
