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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Goa racing to meet Food Security Act deadline -Joaquim Fernandes

Goa racing to meet Food Security Act deadline -Joaquim Fernandes

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published Published on Feb 13, 2015   modified Modified on Feb 13, 2015
-The Times of India

PANAJI: With the deadline for the implementation of the National Food Security Act (NFSA) in Goa fast-approaching (March 15), the government is scrambling to complete the verification of beneficiary data, both for the electronic public distribution system (e-pds) and also for the NFSA.

Civil supplies minister Dayanand Mandrekar told TOI that if Goa does not implement the NFSA on time, the state risks losing the PDS quota of food grains - rice and wheat. The National Food Security Act, 2013, is a central act which aims to provide food grains to approximately two thirds of 1.2 billion people.

Mandrekar said that the Centre has set March 15 as the deadline for implementing the NFSA. He said that his department had sent the NFSA file to the finance department for clearance in September but it has been cleared only in January.

Mandrekar said, "We still have one and half months and we will try our best to implement the scheme on time."

Mandrekar has also written to central civil supplies minister Ram Vilas Paswan asking for an appointment with him to request him to extend the deadline. Paswan has not replied yet.

The central government had earlier set the deadline for the Goa government to implement the NFSA by July 2014 but since work was pending, it extended the deadline.

The task of digitization of data of all ration card holders in Goa was entrusted to Goa Electronics Limited (GEL). This was phase one of the Goa e-pds project, costing around 23 crore. Phase two involves verification of the data. The government plans to do this through GEL, which will conduct three-day camps in every village panchayat of Goa.

The verification of beneficiaries by GEL will include capturing the ration card holders' finger prints (biometrics), iris image and other data. The e-pds project involves a population of about 12.8 lakh people and 4.14 lakh ration cards in Goa. For the verification of all these people, GEL will charge the government 57 per beneficiary.

In addition to the e-pds, the verification of the NFSA beneficiaries, which are about 5.23 lakh in Goa, will be done at an additional cost of 7.50 per beneficiary. The total money the government has to pay GEL amounts to 9-crore, of which around 2.80 crore has to be given in the first installment. It was this financial clearance that was pending before the finance department that has delayed the implementation of the NFSA.

Under the e-pds system, the government has fully computerized the PDS system in Goa right from procuring the food grains from the food corporation of India to the storage godowns. All transactions are done on-line and the stock position at any point in the chain can be tracked with accuracy on computers in real time.


The Times of India, 11 February, 2015, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/goa/Goa-racing-to-meet-Food-Security-Act-deadline/articleshow/46204846.cms


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