Centre gives nod for free rice to APL families, says Pondy CM

: Territorial Chief Minister

V Narayanasamy on Saturday that the Centre had given the Puducherry government green signal to supply free rice to all families coming under the Above Poverty Line (APL) category.

Narayanasamy told reporters here that each of the families under APL category holding yellow colour ration cards would be supplied the free rice retrospectively at the rate of 10 kg per month for three months from February this year.

"Soon, rice will be available and the government is making arrangements to procure the rice needed for the scheme from the Food Corporation of India (FCI)," he said.

The Chief Minister said that when he submitted the proposal for the supply of rice to the APL families for formal approval to Lieutenant Governor Kiran Bedi she imposed certain conditions.

 

The first condition was that the nod of the Central government should be obtained before executing the scheme. The second condition was that the entire expenditure to implement the scheme should be borne by the territorial government, he said.

Narayanasamy said he contacted the Union Home Minister Amit Shah for approval of the scheme as the Lieutenant Governor had forwarded the proposal to him.

"I contacted the Home Minister who has given us green signal to supply rice to APL families also. Already, the families coming under BPL category were getting the rice as per the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana," Narayanasamy pointed out.

On the representation received from the Chamber of Commerce to let shops and establishments reopen, the Chief Minister said the proposal was under consideration and a decision in this regard would be taken soon.

He made it clear that no liquor shops would be permitted to restart business during the ongoing lockdown and appealed to the people to ensure that there was no breach of the shutdown.

Narayanasamy said there was no incidence of COVID- 19 in Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam regions while Puducherry region had now four active cases. But the Union Territory has been classified as a 'green zone'.