Residents rue insufficient ration quota
Shariq Majeed
Tribune News service

Rajouri, August 13
The state government has given 15 kg of rice as monthly ration to above poverty line (APL) families who are even having more than 10 members.

However, the ration for the APL families for a month is 35 kg, of which a family gets 20 kg of wheat, 15 of kg rice, besides each member of a family gets 7 kg of sugar.

If one goes by the state government’s Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution Department’s (CAPDs) scale of distribution of subsidised ration among the APL families, each member of a 10-member family gets 1.5 kg of rice per month.

Residents of far-flung areas, including Buddhal, Thannamandi, Manjakote and Darhal areas here, in this border district, who largely depend on the government-supplied ration due to poverty, rued that the government by following this scale of distribution had made mockery of the public distribution system.

They said some of the families had more than 10 members so the quota of ration given by the government could not last for even a week for each member.

Sources in the district administration said as per the directions of the director, CAPD, Jammu, each APL family, irrespective of the number of family members, is to get 35 kg ration per month.

Earlier, the director, CAPD, Jammu, had sent a letter to the Deputy Commissioner here. The letter said: “The Centre is allotting foodgrain to the state under the targeted-public distribution system at the scale of 35 kg of foodgrain per family per month as per the number of families in the state conveyed to them by the state Planning and Statistical Department in 2000.”