Hills get succour

Jalpaiguri, June 29:  The Mamata Banerjee government today announced a special food package for the Darjeeling hills, doubling the amount of rice and wheat for those under the Antoday Anna Yojana and fulfilling the longstanding demand of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha.

At the Jalpaiguri circuit house today, food minister Jyotipriya Mullick said his department would allocate 30,000 tonnes of rice and wheat exclusively for Darjeeling, Kurseong and Kalimpong subdivisions under the AAY. He also announced that by March 31, 2012, eligible hill residents who had not yet come under the AAY, would be covered.

“I am making this announcement under the instructions of chief minister Mamata Banerjee who wanted a special package for the hills,” Mullick said.

“Each person used to get 800gm of rice and 700gm of wheat a week, we are now going to distribute 1.6kg of rice and 1.4kg of wheat to each person,” he said. People covered under the AAY, purchase rice and wheat at Rs 2 per kilo.

At the same time, the food minister expressed his concern at the huge number of fake ration cards in the state. “According to our estimates, there are about 1.4 crore fake ration cards in the state. We are trying to root them out so that the food supply to genuine people can be increased,” he said.

Mullick started for Darjeeling in the evening along with north Bengal development minister, Gautam Deb. “I will sit with my department officers in Darjeeling tomorrow and also tour the tea gardens there,” he said.

Morcha general secretary Roshan Giri said an increase in the allocation of foodgrain was a long-standing demand of the hills.

“We had raised this demand with the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government earlier but nothing was done. We had also met Union food minister, Sharad Pawar, during one of our visits to Delhi. We welcome the step taken by the Mamata Banerjee government,” said Giri.

The Telegraph