To save funds, government to again cut rice in Anna Bhagya scheme

Bengaluru: In an effort to rationalise expenditure, the state government decided to reduce the quantity of rice under the Anna Bhagya scheme.
From July, the government will cut down the supply of rice from 5kgs to 3kgs. However, this will be compensated by 2kgs ragi or jowar depending on the region’s staple food. Every household will continue to get 2kgs wheat.
“We have added a staple grain in addition to rice so that people will get their daily nutrition,” said food and civil supplies minister K Gopalaiah.
The BJP government in April had reduced the quantity of rice under the scheme from 7kgs to 5kgs.
The further reduction comes much to despair of the Congress, under whose regime the scheme was introduced. “We’ll launch a statewide protest. The policies of the government have been anti-poor and it’s making changes using the Covid-19 crisis as a pretext. This will be detrimental to the farm sector,” said KPCC president DK Shivakumar.
According to officials, substituting rice with ragi or jowar will save the exchequer as much as Rs 800 crore annually.
“The state government pays a subsidised price of Rs 3 per kg of rice to the Food Corporation of India (FCI), while the cost or procurement of ragi or jowar is around Re 1/kg. This will ease the burden on the exchequer,” said food commissioner Shamla Iqbal.
Gopalaiah, however, said the main objective of introducing ragi and jowar was not to save money but to protect the farm sector that is reeling under the Covid crisis.
“We procured 1.9 lakh tonnes of ragi and 8,300 lakh tonnes of jowar at a minimum support price per quintal of Rs 3,150 and Rs 2,550 respectively. While it has helped farmers sell their produce for a good price, we plan to procure more,” said Gopalaiah.