Cash transfer for food to be implemented after 90% consumers have valid cards

Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Administration K V Thomas on Monday said the government would implement cash transfers for food under the proposed Food Security Bill after 90 per cent of the target consumers have valid identity proof.

"Cash transfer for food would be implemented only after 90 per cent of consumers have an identity proof such as Aadhaar," Thomas said while speaking to reporters after inaugurating the Food Corporation of India's regional office for Tamil Nadu and district office for Chennai.

The present system of food grants would continue, he assured. He added that the system is defined in a manner in which if the consumer is withdrawing the subsidy component and not using it for purchasing the food grain, after two defaults, the account would be frozen. Plans are to conduct a pilot study in the six Union territories before implementing it. "This is a well thought of system and we are not jumping into something unknown," he added.

However, he did not comment on when the Food Security Bill was expected to be discussed and passed in Parliament. The Bill would cover around 82 crore people, which is almost 67 per cent of the population in the country, while the current public distribution system covers only 6.5 crore families or 32 crore people. He also elaborated on the changes made in the bill, including the extension of the programme to provide nutritious, locally-cooked food to mothers with more than two children. The Bill has also detailed that it would consider the mother in the family as the head of the family, when it comes to implementation of schemes.

The new building of FCI, set up in Chennai, has been built at a cost of around ~14.37 crore. The FCI Tamil Nadu region meets the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) and other welfare schemes requirement of the state by inducting approximately 3.36 lakh metric tonnes (MTs) of food grains every month. The FCI has a storage capacity of 10.72 lakh MTs in the state, which is sufficient to cater to 3.5 months of TPDS requirement.