-The Indian Express Officials said 24 such families had approached them in Surjamata alone, a village of 150 families. Most people here work as daily wagers, owning no land and barely any possessions. Purulia (West Bengal): Bordering Jharkhand, the district of Purulia in West Bengal has zero cases of coronavirus. However, that is not the only COVID-19 story here. With the state government announcing free ration under PDS for six months to...
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Calls for free ration grow as migrants fight hunger -Zia Haq, Smriti Kak Ramachandran and Saubhadra Chatterji
-Hindustan Times The Union government has allowed charities and states to buy extra stocks of federally held foodgrains at a reserve but cheaper-than-market price as several migrant workers battle a food crisis. New Delhi: The Union government has allowed charities and states to buy extra stocks of federally held foodgrains at a reserve but cheaper-than-market price as several migrant workers battle a food crisis. The federally run Food Corporation of India has reserved...
More »Foodgrain stocks bountiful, yet the poor are going hungry -Furquan Ameen
-The Telegraph Provide emergency ration cards, universalise PDS in rural areas and urban slums, says Dreze India’s foodgrain stocks have never been so bountiful, yet the government is struggling to ensure that no one remains hungry in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic that has sparked an unprecedented emergency involving jobless migrant workers, thousands of whom are stranded away from their homes. Stocks with Food Corporation of India was estimated to be around...
More »‘More than 100mn excluded from PDS as govt uses outdated Census 2011 data’
-India Spend Team The public distribution system (PDS) is meant to play a key role in disbursing government support to the poorest Indians during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. However, the system leaves more than 100 million people excluded from its reach, as per academics Jean Drèze, Reetika Khera and Meghana Mungikar, because the central government uses 2011 population figures from the last census to calculate state-wise PDS coverage. Under the National Food...
More »Coronavirus Lockdown: As Hunger Grows, the Fear of Starvation Is Real -Kabir Agarwal
-TheWire.in Over 100 million people face food insecurity if the PDS is not universalised. Meerut: Tek Narayan and Shyam Kishore Singh are migrant labourers who were employed at a construction site earning Rs 300 a day. Since the lockdown was announced, they have been stranded at the site, which is located on the outskirts of Meerut. Their homes are over 1,200 kilometres away in Latehar, one of the most backward districts of...
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