Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s first announcement of rice at Rs 1 per kg for the below poverty line families (BPL) will not be implemented from June 1. Neither the state’s Food and Civil Supplies Department nor the Finance Department have the rice or funds in place to start supplying rice to the poor at that rate within the next two days.
A senior source in the government told Express: “Minister of State for Food and Civil Supplies Dinesh Gundu Rao is headed for New Delhi on Wednesday in the hope that the Union Government will bail us out of this situation. There is a shortage of over 80 lakh metric tonnes of rice and we are hoping to get this at the subsidised Central Government rates, so that we can meet our commitment to give rice to the poor at Rs 1 per kg.’’
Pricing and quantity of the food subsidy is a big issue, as the government cannot afford to purchase such huge quantities of rice from the open market and supply it at Rs 1 to the BPL families. Finance Department officials point out that the subsidy would “balloon out of control” if this has to be done. Siddaramaiah had initially announced an additional subsidy of Rs 460 crore for this scheme, but a finance official admitted: “It will definitely be more than that.”
Rao is likely to meet Union Minister of State for Food and Public Distribution K V Thomas and seek to bridge the additional requirements. “As soon as he gets a commitment, the scheme will be launched. So as of now, we are not able to commit to a date,’’ the source added.
The Centre supplies rice to the states at three rates — Rs3 per kg for the Anthyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY), Rs 5.65 per kg for the BPL and Rs 8.30 per kg for the above poverty line families or APL. The AAY and BPL put-together come to about 32 lakh families. But Karnataka considers about 90 lakh families as BPL, and all of them get rice at Rs 2 per kg. The gap in the pricing is subsidised by the state. The Centre also gives rice at an “economic rate”, which is around Rs 20 a kg.
Siddaramaiah, however, announced a further subsidy of Rs 1 per kg on May 13, immediately after he took oath as CM. Further, he did away with the unit system, which limited each family to 20 kg a month. This has been hiked to a flat 30 kg a month, leading to the increase in the demand for rice against the amount supplied by the Food Corporation of India.
“Getting the additional rice should not be a problem, as subsidised rice is a pet scheme of the Congress. They plan to introduce this nation-wide, and food security is a major issue for the party and the Union Government. But since we are not yet ready, the implementation will take some time, that is all,’’ a finance official told Express.
