Fair price shops in East Khasi Hills district will be opened on Friday and Saturday to distribute essential commodities especially rice to the people in view of the lockdown situation due to COVID-19 pandemic.
The timing for selling the items is between 9 am and 1 pm on both days.
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The headmen have been requested to assist the district administration and ensure proper regulation of consumers during the distribution and ensure the public adhere to social distancing.
Also read: Grocery shops to remain open in Meghalaya from March 27
On Wednesday, Meghalaya deputy chief minister Prestone Tynsong said the state government would start distributing food grains to the people from Friday.
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The Meghalaya government also listed 23 food items as essential commodities in view of the 21-day lockdown in the entire country.
After an emergent cabinet meeting on Wednesday, deputy chief minister Tynsong told reporters that the main issue deliberated was on the delivery of essential commodities to all households of the people of the state.
“As far as Public Distribution System (PDS) is concerned, there is no shortage of rice, and distribution to the retailers has taken place in the entire state for this month (March),” the deputy CM said.
“In the first week of April, we have sought allotments for April and distribute the same to the people.We have also decided to move again to the FCI for the allotment for May and June happens and the Food & Civil Supply department is on the job,” Tynsong said.
The cabinet also talked about the items which are outside the PDS and National Food Security Act because there are families who were not included in this scheme not less than 30-35 per cent of them are outside the scheme, who totally dependent on buying essential commodities from open markets.
“We have taken a decision that as far as the open market is concerned, the government will make sure that the transportation of items to be sold in open market items does not stop. We have already instructed the chief secretary to also take up this issue with the counterparts like Punjab, Haryana, Bihar where we can bring in the supply of rice and other important commodities to our state without any hindrances,” Tynsong said.