Inflation, coupled with food subsidies to ration card holders in Himachal Pradesh is set to exceed budgetary provisions for the current financial year by around 35 per cent and cost the state Rs 474 crore.
Food minister Ramesh Dhawala said on Friday that Rs 86 crore has been spent under state food subsidy scheme. “Instead of the budgetary provision of Rs 100 crore, Rs 135 crore has been spent on supplying three kg of pulses, one litre cooking oil and one kg salt to more than 1.6 million ration card holders,” he told the state Assembly.
With the state launching food subsidy scheme five years ago, there has been a huge rise in the number of ration card holders as the scheme provides food items on card basis instead of per head basis .
The food minister told the House that the number of ration cards in the last three years had gone up to 16,31,804 from 15,58,093 .
The Centre, he said, had cut the state’s food quota of rationed food items under the public distribution system saying the number of ration cards exceeds the state’s population.
So far, the state government has detected 6,787 fake or duplicate ration cards and these have been cancelled. FIRs have also been registered against them, Dhawala said.
