Bhubaneswar, Dec 15
Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik announced Friday that the State Food Security Scheme, which covers around 10 lakh people left out of the central scheme under the National Food Security Act (NFSA), would be extended for five years.
It came days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement on the extension of the Centre’s free foodgrains scheme for the next five years.
He had made the announcement at election rallies in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in November.
The decision will lead to an additional financial burden of Rs 1,250 crore on the state’s coffers.
“Around 9.9 lakh members belonging to 3.14 lakh households who have been covered under the scheme will continue to receive free 5 kg rice per month. While extending the scheme, the chief minister has directed that not a single poor person in Odisha should be deprived of rice,” said a senior government official.
Coming months before the simultaneous general and Assembly elections, the announcement holds political significance given that the subsidised rice scheme was a game-changer for the Patnaik-led Biju Janata Dal in the past three elections.
Much before the Centre’s NFSA, Patnaik launched the subsidised scheme of Rs 2 per kg popularly known as “Di tankia Chaula” in 2008.
It was believed to have played a role in his winning a hat-trick in 2009 despite the BJD having gone solo for the first time, after severing ties with the BJP.
Contrary to the speculations that his government may wind up the cheap rice scheme, Patnaik not only continued the scheme but also revised it to Re 1 per kg in January 2013, just a year before the 2014 polls. Despite the Modi wave that swept the country, Patnaik’s party increased its vote share and number of seats in the Lok Sabha and the Assembly.
Even after the implementation of the centrally sponsored NFSA in 2014, Patnaik claimed that around 25 lakh eligible people were left out of the scheme because of the maximum population limit fixed by the Centre for Odisha to be included under the Act.
Years later, Patnaik launched his government’s own food security scheme in October 2018, months before the 2019 general elections, to provide subsidised rice to the left-out poor on par with entitlements under the NFSA. The state government bears the full expense of the scheme, which has covered around 10 lakh people so far.
In January, Patnaik announced that his government would provide free rice to the beneficiaries of the state scheme, days after the Modi government announced free foodgrains under the NFSA.
