AGARTALA: Tripura government on Wednesday announced that 6.19 lakh poor families in the state would get free ration for one month in view of the COVID-19 situation and the 21-day lockdown. Law Minister Ratan Lal Nath on Wednesday said that the decision to provide provide free ration for one month was taken in a meeting of the state council of ministers on Tuesday.
Nath said that as per the Public Distribution System (PDS) records, Tripura has 5.79 lakh 'poor' families including 1.09 lakh Antodaya Annapurna Yojana (AAY) families, 4.70 lakh priority group or BPL families.
He said that in addition to BPL and AAY beneficiaries, government would extend similar benefits to 50,000 people registered to be living above the poverty line (APL), though they are actually poor. "Almost 25 lakh people under BPL and AAY categories and 2 lakh people in APL category would benefit from this initiative. The scheme would incur a financial involvement of Rs 7.22 crore," Nath said.
Students in primary and elementary sections would be given take-home food under the mid day meal scheme, pregnant and lactating mothers would also be given take home food on daily basis. The minister said Rs 75 crore would be used for giving social security pension to all beneficiaries in advance.
The scheme also covers 40,000 construction workers of the state who would get Rs 1,000 for next three months. The money would be credited in their account in DBT mode at a time. Urban homeless and destitute, who were provided cooked meal since last few days, would now be given rice, soyabean, eggs, spices, mustard oil, potatoes, onions as per requirements.
This ration would be given for next seven days to 1,500 beneficiaries across the state. The state government will also provide ration to tea garden workers under the scheme.
Nath said that Tripura has got 57 days buffer stock of rice, 78 days stock for wheat, 29 days sugar stock, 23 days salt stock, 9 days lentil and pulse stock, 11 days stock for petrol, 8 days diesel stock and sufficient LPG stock.