Puducherry Chief Minister V
Narayanasamy on Thursday reiterated his allegation that Lt Governor Kiran Bedi was 'disrupting' implementation of free rice scheme for the poor, during the lockdown in the Union Territory, and said the latter was adopting an "anti people approach."
Narayanasamy told reporters that each of the 1.87 lakh families coming under BPL category was not able to get five kilo free rice as is envisaged under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana.
"When we insisted that the families should be provided rice through ration shops, the Lt Governor had been sticking to her stand that only cash equivalent to the quantum of rice should be distributed under DBT system to the beneficiaries," he alleged.
The Chief Minister accused Bedi of "deliberately delaying" implementation of a rice scheme evolved by the Prime Minister to benefit the poor families.
She had sent the file containing her stand to the President.
"But the President had preferred not to intervene in the matter," he claimed and consequently the free rice scheme was virtually hanging in the balance.
"However following my representation to the Union Minister for Food, Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution Ram Vilas Pawan the rice was released to Puducherry for distribution to the poor families.
The rice was available to Puducherry a month ago, but due to the intervention by the Lt governor the scheme could not see the light of the day," he said.
Registering strong protest against the "irresponsive" nature of the people in Puducherry who do not adhere to social distancing, he said people were seen crowding on the roads and this had come to cause apprehension for his government which is going ahead with steps to prevent spread of COVID-19.
"If the people continued to ignore the social distancing norm the government would ask the shop owners and traders to do business once every three days," he said.
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