Fair price shops to open from April 1 in Goa

PANAJI: In a welcome relief to citizens under lockdown, fair price shops (FPS) will keep their shutters open April 1 onwards. Only four essential commodities — rice, dal, sugar and oil — will be sold. Owing to the prevailing situation, even non-ration card holders will be permitted to purchase from FPS.
Gaude said he has spoken to chief minister Pramod Sawant to work out a mechanism to keep stores open during the lockdown with notified timings and the list of items that will be sold.“We are planning to permit non-card holders to purchase ration from 8am to 11am till the lockdown ends. We will give directions to grocers and traders to follow this,” he said.
There are approximately 450 licenced fair price shops in Goa and over 3,39,348 ration card holders.
Currently, the godowns have a quota of 10,000 tonne of food grains, Gaude said. “We will collect food grains from the Food Corporation of India (FCI). These will be distributed among the FPS so that they can start selling them from April 1,” he said. Vendors running FPS have to apply for the curfew pass with the collector.