Odisha to introduce Food Security Act soon: Patnaik

The Odisha Food Security Act will be introduced soon to cover about 3.26 crore people in the state, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said today. "Keeping in tune with our commitment, my government is going to introduce a holistic Odisha Food Security Act very shortly with emphasis on agricultural production, marketing and equitable distribution of food grain," Patnaik said on the second day of the collectors' conference here.

The new Act would ensure equitable distribution of food grains to all with focus on tribals, slum dwellers and other vulnerable sections of the society, he told the Agriculture and Food Security session. Indicators reflecting the socio economic conditions of a family would be introduced to make the coverage inclusive and holistic, he said adding nearly 72 lakh ration cards would be distributed to the surveyed families.

Digitisation of ration cards would also be undertaken to stop pilferage and ensure complete transparency in the distribution of entitlements to deserving families, he said and asked district collectors to act as agents of change to revamp the public distribution system.

Patnaik said efforts will be made to raise productivity by creating additional irrigation potential to the tune of ten lakh hectares within the next five years. "To achieve this objective, Rs 5000 crore will be spent each year on major, medium and small irrigation projects, deep bore wells, mega lift irrigation projects and restoration of the defunct lift irrigation points.

"Besides, efforts would be made for easy access to quality seeds, fertilisers, pesticides and farm mechanisation along with agricultural credit with the lowest percentage of interest," he said. To support agricultural marketing the government will create a network of storage facilities, including cold storage chains, threshing floors, drying yards and mandis with sound connectivity with marketing avenues and access to a SMS based information flow, he added.

Patnaik asked collectors to act as agents of change and ensure that no compromise is made in the quality of food grains under the PDS and there is no delay in its distribution to the beneficiaries. The collectors should personally undertake surprise checks frequently and take steps to prevent black marketing of kerosene, the chief minister said.

Stating that the performance of collectors in invoking the provisions of Black Marketing Act is not up to the mark, Patnaik said "Henceforth, hoarders and black marketers are to be dealt with very strongly.

Private retailers should be completely replaced with institution-based PDS in a time bound manner." Rs 400 crore is lying unspent with the Regulated Marketing Committees (RMCs), Patnaik said adding the state government has substantially enhanced the limits of administrative approval of collectors and sub collectors pertaining to the execution of development works in the RMCs.

The collectors must take advantage of it and utilise the entire unspent amount in improving agricultural marketing infrastructure of the RMCs within the next six months, he said.

The chief minister also asked the collectors to involve the self help groups and other community-based organisations in PDS monitoring at the grass root level.

This apart, the Food Supply and Consumer Welfare department should come up with a SMS-based complaint monitoring system to redress all PDS related grievances. Both these systems should be put in place within a period of two months, he said.