BJP stages walk out over Atal Khadyanna yojna

Dehra Dun, May 30 (PTI) The main opposition BJP today staged a walkout in Uttarakhand assembly alleging the Congress government was not serious in implementing Atal Khadyanna Yojna to provide the foodgrains at a cheaper rate to the people belonging to APL category. The BJP members' protest came despite Uttarakhand food and civil supplies minister Pritam Singh saying that the government is pursuing with the Centre for revival of rice quota to provide foodgrains under the Yojna and assuring them that the state government has no intention to close or rename the scheme launched by the previous BJP government. Replying to a question by Chandan Ramdass (BJP), the minister informed the state assembly that Uttarakhand is getting only 3,432 metric tonnes of rice from the Centre against the requirement of 20,000 metric tonne of rice. He, however, said the state government is pursuing the matter with the centre for revival of full rice quota to end the shortage. Singh said currently each APL family is being provided 1.700 kg of rice every month against the prescribed quota of 10 kg through fair price shops. He, however, said there is no shortage of rice to the people belonging to BPL category or beneficiaries of Antodya yojna. He said there is also no shortage of wheat in the state. Prem Chandra Agrawal of BJP advised the state government to fill the gap between requirement and availability from the Centre from its own resources to provide succour to the people reeling under the soaring price rise. The suggestion was immediately rejected by the minister stating that the state government has no resources to fill this gap. The BJP members, however, expressed dissatisfaction with the reply and staged a walk out from the assembly. In reply to another related question, Singh said the government has taken several steps like constitution of task force and administrative committees for bringing qualitative changes in the PDS system. He also said during a verification drive, nearly 30,000 bogus ration cards were cancelled and the process is still on.