Centre directs Bihar to lift foodgrain quota by August 31

The Centre today directed Bihar Government to arrange for lifting its food grain quota between March to May from other states, latest by August 31.

Union Food and Public Distribution Minister Ramvilas Paswan told reporters here that the August 31 deadline would not be extended as his ministry might have to explain to the auditors about "favors" being doled out to Bihar.

"There is swelling public anger over non-distribution of subsidized foodgrain among the people for which the state government must arrange for lifting its quota for three months between March and May this year latest by August 31 and distribute the same among the beneficiaries without any further delay," he said.

Tightening the noose around the state government amid ongoing blame game between the Centre and Bihar over issues related to lifting of foodgrain quota of three months, Paswan asked the Bihar government to arrange for lifting the foodgrain quota on war footing so that the needy people could get subsidized food without any further delay.

The Union Minister said that the state does not have storage capacity and warehouse to keep the foodgrain supply and so it was blaming the Centre on one pretext or another.

Bihar has got storage capacity for 5.37 lakh tonnes foodgrains of which almost all infrastructure belongs to the Centre, Paswan said and slammed the state government for not augmenting storage capacity in the state at all.

All states have must have storage capacity for at least four months' foodgrain and in Bihar's case it should have storage capacity for storing 16.36 lakh tonnes foodgrains for this duration, but the infrastructure was simply not there on ground, he said.