Last Updated on August 21, 2024 6: 43pm
Dimapur: The Nagaland government has identified 70.95 per cent of the population of the state to provide food and nutritional security free of cost under the National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013. The remaining 29.05 per cent of the population is not covered under the Act as per the 2011 census.
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In a notification on Wednesday, the state government said 2,37,434 households with 11,93,922 beneficiaries under the priority household (PHH) scheme and 47,500 households with 2,09,657 beneficiaries under the Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) will be covered.
The notification said the food and civil supplies department endeavoured to maximize coverage of non-NFSA beneficiaries by streamlining tide-over allocation.
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The state government notified the guidelines for distribution of the tide over foodgrains through the targeted public distribution system (TPDS).
There are a total of 1852 fair price shops in the state – 459 in urban areas and 1,342 in rural areas. Foodgrain (rice) under the NFSA will be given free of cost only to PHH and AAY ration card holders till December 2028 as per the Government of India directive.
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The government said there is an additional allocation of foodgrains to protect the annual average offtake of the last three years under normal TPDS as tide-over allocation which can be issued on payment at the government-approved rate to the public on need basis through the government-appointed stockiest-cum-handling agent of the respective districts.
As per the guidelines, the beneficiaries with an annual income of Rs 2.5 lakh and above, who are not covered under the AAY and PHH scheme and issued general household (GHH) ration cards, will be covered by the allocation of tide-over rice.
The notification said the GHH beneficiaries’ data will be digitised and ported to the department’s website to maintain transparency and accountability in the public distribution system, the notification added.