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Officials of Food and Civil Supplies and Pathfinders along with representatives from 26 organisations during the seminar on November 16.[/caption]
Dimapur, November 17: Director of Food and Civil Supplies (F&CS), Alun Hangsing said the department is fully prepared and making all efforts to ensure the food items reach the actual beneficiaries without any pilferage or delay at their door steps.
The Director said this during a one day awareness seminar on the National Food Security Act (NFSA) which was organized by the Dimapur based Non Governmental Organisation (NGO) Pathfinders at Hotel Acacia on November 16.
NFSA is to ensure food and nutrition to the beneficiaries at an affordable price. According to Hangsing Nagaland presently has a total of as little more than 14 lakh targeted beneficiaries out of the total population of a little less than 20 lakh.
Hangsing said “end to end computerisation” is being maintained to ensure transparency and that local authority such as Gaon Buras and Chairmen of village councils/ wards/ colonies are involved in identification of beneficiaries. He also pointed out that those having an income of less than 1.5 lakh per year are entitled to be included in the Priority Household (PHH) or the AAY, and that beneficiaries would get 5 kilogram of rice delivered at their doorsteps every month.
State chief minister TR Zeliang had launched the NFSA in the districts of Dimapur and Kohima on June 27 last and the Act became effective in the latter part of July this year.
T Onen Jamir of Dimapur GB Union appreciated the department of F&CS for tirelessly working day and night in the last few months to identify, authenticate and select the beneficiaries and ensuring that the food items reach them without pilferage. He requested the department to include more genuine beneficiaries in future.
Another GB representing the GBs’ Federation requested the department to include all the six administrative blocks in Dimapur in the distribution system instead of only the four currently in place namely, Dimapur Sadar, Medziphema, Dhansiripar and Niuland.
Transportation and lifting of food items by the villagers from the godowns was a major concern of all the various speakers at the seminar saying certain villages are known to spend thousands of rupees on carriage and labour to ensure that the items reach the Fair Price Shops in the localities.
The onus of these overhead expenses often led to sale of the food items in the open market to cover up the costs, speakers pointed out. In some instances, the distributors were compelled to short change the beneficiaries so as to sell a portion of the food items in the market to make up for the expenditures incurred.
President of Kohima GBs’ Association said his Khel in Kohima village has 328 PHHs but has a total of 890 households which pays house tax. He, however, said when distribution time comes, the limited food items meant for the 328 PHH card holders have to be shared with more than 500 households. In this regard, he requested the department to go for another drive to add more beneficiaries to the list of PHH card holders.
Representatives of the District Legal Services Authority from Kohima and Dimapur spoke on the provision of the NFSA which entitles a beneficiary to receive 5 kilogram of rice every month; meeting the costs of transportation of food items to the beneficiaries by the government; and provision of scientific storage facilities to ensure quality food stuff to the beneficiaries.
The legal representatives suggested that since villagers are not IT-savvy and cannot access the Internet to browse the list of beneficiaries, the Fair Price shops should print out the list of beneficiaries and paste the list prominently so that people can actually see the names.
On the issue raised by some speakers that the authentication and identification of genuine beneficiaries was questionable in some instances, the department requested the GBs and chairmen of village councils/ wards/ panchayats to understand the significance and importance of maintaining genuine lists and asked for their unstinted cooperation to ensure that only genuine persons/ households are included.
Spillage of rice grains in godowns was also another major issue discussed since it was alleged that a bag of rice supposed to contain 50 kilos hardly has 45 or more kilos thereby placing the distributors/ Fair Price shops in an embarrassing position when at the distribution point, they end up with lesser amount than specified. To this, the department pointed out that, spillages do occur while loading and unloading the items adding the food items do not come directly to their godowns from the source but routed through several godowns before reaching them.
The department assured the gathering that the process of identifying the beneficiaries is going on in full swing and that fraudulent ones would soon be taken off the list and genuine and deserving households would be added to the list of beneficiaries.
“We need the support of grassroots leaders and functionaries to improve our performance in delivering the food items to the needy and targeted groups of people in the society,” department officials said.
Director of Pathfinder, Vitono Gugu Haralu delivered the welcome address, while Bano Haralu invoked God’s blessing at the programme. The event concluded with closing remark by Pranay Massey.
Altogether representatives from 26 organisations along with officials from the Department of Food & Civil Supplies, District Legal Services Authority (DLSA) of Kohima and Dimapur, attended the seminar.
