Jaipur: The Rajasthan government has added new norms to check the eligibility of beneficiaries under the National Food Security Act. The beneficiaries who pay annual electricity bills of more than Rs 50,000, use air conditioners at home, and sell more than 100 quintals of crops to the government at MSP rates may lose NFSA food subsidies.
The state government is running a Give Up Campaign for ineligible beneficiaries to surrender their food subsidy so that the poor can receive their entitled grain.
Food and Civil Supplies Minister Sumit Godara said that 4.8 million affluent beneficiaries in the state have voluntarily surrendered their food subsidy under the Give-Up Campaign, which began on November 1st last year.“The campaign will last till December 31st this year. Punitive and recovery action will be taken against ineligible individuals who do not voluntarily relinquish their food security benefits after the deadline,” said the minister.
The Give-Up Campaign and the failure to complete e-KYC helped the new beneficiaries to get the food subsidy in the state, as since the relaunch of the Food Security Portal on January 26th this year, over 70.25 lakh eligible individuals have been added to the NFSA.
Godara said, "Affluent individuals should relinquish their food subsidies so that the truly deprived can get their due, and for this the state government added some new norms with the existing ones to check the eligibility of beneficiaries under NFSA.”
According to guidelines of theNFSA , the families with at least one member in a government job or receiving a pension of more than ₹100,000 annually, families with at least one income tax payer, or at least one member who owns a four-wheeled vehicle (excluding tractors and one commercial vehicle) are considered ineligible under the Food Security Act.
Now new norms of payment of electricity bills of more than ₹50,000 annually, use of air conditioners at homes, and sale of more than 100 quintals of crops to the government at the MSP rate have been added to the ineligibility criteria of NFSA. These norms have been added after a survey conducted by the state government.
