Punjab to launch new Atta-Dal scheme soon: Kairon

Punjab Food Minister Adaish Partap Singh Kairon today said that the state's new Atta-Dal scheme would soon be rolled out, and that it was his government's priority to ensure timely delivery of fresh wheat to the beneficiaries.
"We will soon be launching the new Atta-Dal scheme," the minister said without giving a specific time-frame.
Talking to reporters on the sidelines of a State Level Bankers' Committee meeting, Kairon said there would be no bearing of the Model Code of Conduct for the Lok Sabha polls on the roll-out of the scheme.
He, however, said the Centre had to sanction the scheme and give permission about procurement of wheat for distribution. He said his government's priority was to ensure timely delivery of wheat in a packaged form to beneficiaries.

The Punjab government had announced to launch the scheme from December last year but it had not been rolled out so far because of non-finalisation of the list of beneficiaries.
The SAD-BJP government, which had tweaked the National Food Security Scheme and merged with its Atta-Dal scheme, was expecting to cover 1.42 crore beneficiaries which would be about 50 per cent of the state's population.

Earlier 15.40 lakh families were covered under the scheme but now under the new Atta-Dal scheme, the unit of beneficiary had been changed from family to individual.
The government had announced to give 25 kg wheat at Re 1 per kg and 2.5 kg of pulses at Rs 20 per kg to beneficiaries. However, under the National Food Security Act the Centre would provide wheat at Rs 2 per kg to the beneficiaries.

The government has estimated that over 9 lakh tonnes of wheat and 78,000 tonnes of pulses would be distributed under this scheme every year.