White Card Holders to Get 6 Kg Rice

HYDERABAD: The state government will launch three new schemes from January 1. It proposes to supply six kg of rice to each member of family having white ration card, supply of fine quality of rice to inmates of welfare hostels and supply of eggs and mid-day meal to all pregnant women and children in anganwadis.

At the zilla parishad meeting of Ranga Reddy district held here on Saturday, finance minister E Rajender said the government would replace the existing ration cards with Food Security Cards soon. He said that six kg rice would be supplied to each member of the family having white ration cards, irrespective of the total number of family members.

The minister further said that the government was committed to provide food security cards and social security pensions to all eligible persons in the state. He said that fine variety of rice would be supplied to schools for mid-day meal programme.

Irrigation minister T Harish Rao said that the state government has identified 2,747 tanks in Rangareddy district for restoring them under Mission Kakatiya in the next five years. He said that every year 20 per cent of the total tanks would be restored.

Harish Rao said that if any donor came forward to restore irrigation tanks, the government would hand over the tanks to them.

Transport minister P Mahender Reddy said that 555 minor irrigation tanks would be restored in Ranga Reddy district in the first phase. He said that out of 555 tanks, the survey was completed on 340 tanks so far and the proposals for 187 tanks with an estimated cost of `113 crore were prepared. Mahender Reddy said that the government was planning to construct godowns to store one lakh tonnes of food grains in Rangareddy district.