Minister seeks central assistance in importing food and civil supplies

GANGTOK, 09 July [IPR]: The Minister for Food and Civil Supplies & Consumer Affairs, NK Subba, along with the Secretary, Food and CS &CA, attended the conference of State Ministers for Food and Consumer Affairs along with Secretaries held on 04 July at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi. The conference was chaired by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in the presence of Union Food, Public Distribution and Consumer Affairs Minister, Ram Vilas Paswan, Agriculture Minister, Radha Mohan Singh and Minister of State, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, RD Danve.
The key agenda for the conference was to find out ways and means to arrest the price rise of essential commodities and to know the latest implementation status of National Food Security Act, 2013.
The Minister during the meeting informed the gathering that Government of Sikkim had constituted a price monitoring committee to control prices of essential commodities and other consumables in the state. The Legal Metrology Unit of Food and Civil Supplies & CA Department was also regularly monitoring the prices of essential commodities and keeping vigil of any incidence of hoarding in the state.
He further informed that Sikkim was an organic farming state but does not have marketable surplus in agricultural produce due to low productivity. Sikkim is wholly dependent on the markets in West Bengal and Bihar due to which transportation cost adds to the burden on the consumers.
The Minister requested the central government for assistance in meeting the expenditure incurred towards interstate movement handling of agriculture produce and margins paid to dealers, etc. He also requested for central assistance to establish warehouse with cold storage facility in all the four districts to counter any exigency of food crisis in the state. He further requested for expediting construction of the rail link connecting Sikkim and West Bengal and construction of double lane on NH 10.
The centre had chalked out a 6-month action plan to curb food inflation, hoarding of essential commodities such as onion, potato, rice, wheat and pulses and according to the Union Minister for Food, hoarding of essential commodities would be a non-bailable offence.
The plan, also included the setting up of a Price Stabilization Fund. State Governments will procure costly essential items like vegetables and perishables and sell them to the public at lower prices. The difference would be met from the Price Stabilization Fund.
As regards implementation of National Food Security Act, 2013, the Minister, Ram Vilas Paswan informed the gathering that the 04 July deadline for implementation of the above act was extended by three months as 25 States and UTs were yet to implement it.
The act which ensures right to food grains was to provide subsidized food grains at Rs. 3, Rs.2 and Re.1 per kg to over 800 million poor people. The Union Minister announced that the Government of India was considering raising the limit of 5 kgs of subsidized food grains per person.