THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Even as the Food and Civil Supplies Department has announced that the National Food Security Act (NFSA) will be implemented soon in the state, the department is finding it hard to find space for storing food grain.
Steps have been launched to identify godowns in all 14 districts, Food Minister Anoop Jacob had said the other day after a meeting with Union Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan in New Delhi earlier this week.
The Act says that all the states should have in stock food grains for three months, but Kerala lacks such spacious facilities at the moment.
District Collectors in eight districts have been asked to hand over locations identified there as soon as possible to the Kerala State Civil Supplies Corporation (Supplyco).
The State Government had originally announced that the National Food Security Act would be implemented in the state on October 2, but the deadline was later moved to November 1.
According to sources, the implementation could be delayed further, even as Anoop Jacob announced here on Thursday that the new ration cards under National Food Security Act would be issued by May 1, 2015.
In fact, he had informed the Union Minister that the state was ready to implement the National Food Security Act.
Of the total 3.33 crore population in Kerala, 1.54 crore will be priority card holders and 1.79 crore will possess general cards under National Food Security Act.
Under the Act, Kerala is entitled to 14.25 lakh tonnes of food grains per annum, but the government has asked the Centre to raise it to 16 lakh tonnes.