BHUBANESWAR: The Odisha Government has decided to launch its own food security scheme to cover poor, distressed and eligible beneficiaries left out from the purview of the National Food Security Act (NFSA).A proposal in this regard was approved by the State Cabinet presided by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik here on Monday. The State Government has decided to utilise its own resources to cover the beneficiaries left out from the NFSA as the Centre has not considered Odisha’s request to increase the upper ceiling of those covered under the Central scheme.
Stating that the issue was taken up with the Centre a number of times to increase the target by 34.44 lakh under the NFSA, Chief Secretary AP Padhi told mediapersons that the Chief Minister had also written to the Prime Minister over matter. However, no response was received from the Centre, he said.The State Government is committed not to leave a single poor, distressed and eligible beneficiary from food security coverage, the Chief Secretary said and added that the requisite quantity of rice per year will be met out of the State pool.
The State will spend Rs 220 crore more in the first 6 months.The distribution of rice to 25 lakh new beneficiaries in the first phase will start from October 2.The Cabinet approved the proposal to fix 11 auto inclusion criteria for selection of beneficiaries under the scheme.
Five new auto inclusion criteria have been proposed to be added to the existing six criteria under NFSA. The new criteria include households with old persons (aged 60 years or above) with no regular support and assured means of subsistence.Households where due to old age, lack of physical or mental fitness, social customs, need to care for disabled or other persons, no adult member is available to engage in gainful employment outside the house will be included under the scheme. Households dependent on daily wage labour, internally displaced persons due to various projects and households having a person suffering from leprosy, HIV or any other critical diseases will also be covered under the scheme.
The criteria under the NFSA include households coming under particularly vulnerable tribal group (PVTG) category, households without shelter, households with destitute living on alms, households with widows and other single woman with no regular support and households having a person with disability (40 per cent or above) are also covered under NFSA.
Besides, nine exclusion criteria will be used during selection of beneficiaries under the scheme. These include households having a member who owns a four-wheeler or heavy vehicle and households having a member working as a regular employee of Central or state government, public sector undertakings and autonomous bodies.
Households having a member working in private sector with monthly salary of more than `10,000 in rural areas and `15000 in urban areas will not be eligible under the scheme. Households having a member who owns an enterprise (other than micro enterprise) registered with government for manufacturing and services, households having domestic electric connection with a load of 2KW or more and/or consuming an average of 300 units of energy per month and households having a member paying income tax or profession tax will not be eligible.