Raut seeks food security for people lacking ration cards
| Date :04-Apr-2020 |
Dr Nitin Raut, Guardian Minister of district; Dr Satish Chaturvedi, former minister; MLA Raju Parwe,
MLC Dushyant Chaturvedi; Dr Girish Gandhi; Ravindra Thakre, District Collector; Ajay Patil and others during the launch of ‘Lockdown Management Portal’ on Friday.
Staff Reporter :
District administration launches ‘Lockdown Management Portal
Dr Nitin Raut, Guardian Minister of district, has written a letter to Uddhav Thackeray, Chief Minister of Maharashtra, seeking measures to ensure food security for people who do not have ration cards. Meanwhile, the district administration, on Friday, launched a ‘Lockdown Management Portal’ to redress grievances of people during lockdown. In the letter written on Thursday, Dr Raut also urged the Chief Minister to allow MLAs to spend Rs 25 lakh from their local development fund to ensure that people did not go hungry during lockdown imposed in the wake of COVID-19 outbreak. He urged the Chief Minister to take a policy decision in this regard at the earliest.
Dr Raut pointed out that though the Government was providing foodgrains to those holding ration cards, the people ‘above poverty line’ who were not covered under National Food Security Act, 2013, were left out. They also needed to be provided foodgrains from fair price (ration) shops. Besides, there were many needy persons including slum-dwellers, rickshaw-pullers, auto-rickshaw drivers, people running tea-stall or paan-kiosks, those doing boot-polish, brick kiln workers, industrial workers, destitutes etc. These people do not have ration cards and hence are deprived of benefits of public distribution system in this hour of crisis.
The Guardian Minister stated that he had received letters from MLAs of all the parties, Congress and Shiv Sena office-bearers demanding foodgrains to be provided to needy persons who lacked ration cards. Against this backdrop, he urged the Chief Minister, the Government should ensure food security for people lacking ration cards. Further, Dr Raut demanded, the cable television connections of people should not be severed by cable television operators during lockdown period.
The operators should recover monthly charges a month late and provide relief to people who are staying at home during lockdown, he added. On Friday, Dr Raut chaired a meeting in which he asked the district administration to compile the list of persons, who are needy but do not have ration card. He asked the Sub-Divisional Officers and Tehsildars to furnish the list for respective areas to the district administration. Dr Raut interacted with Sub-Divisional Officers and Tehsildars through video-conferencing. Soon, he said, he would take department-wise review of the relief measures during lockdown period. Meanwhile, the district administration launched ‘Lockdown Management Portal’ on Friday.
The portal has been conceptualised by Ravindra Thakre, District Collector. Dr Raut launched the portal in presence of Dr Satish Chaturvedi, former minister; Dushyant Chaturvedi, MLC; Raju Parwe, MLA; Girish Gandhi, Ajay Patil; Ravindra Khajanji, Resident Deputy Collector. The portal has been created to redress grievances received from the people during lockdown period. The complaints received at COVID-19 monitoring cell in District Collectorate, and also online, will be flagged to respective departments and the system will send an SMS to the officer concerned. The link to the portal will be shared on social media soon, and it will be helpful in addressing the concerns of the people, said Dr Raut.