Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy. (File)Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy on Saturday launched a pilot project to deliver quality PDS rice at the doorstep of beneficiaries in an effort to do away with adulteration at ration shops and eliminate middlemen, according to the government.
As part of the scheme, ‘village volunteers’ recruited by the state government — at a monthly salary of Rs 5,000 — will be tasked with identifying eligible beneficiaries in each village and personally deliver sealed bags of rice weighing 5, 10 and 15 kg every month.
Beneficiaries would continue to purchase the rest of commodities from ration shops under the Public Distribution System. The pilot project was launched at Palasa, in Srikakulam district, and will be rolled out gradually all over the state, according to the government.
Under the PDS scheme, the government is providing ‘Swarna’ quality rice, which costs Rs 23 per kg in open market, at Rs 1 per kg to eligible beneficiaries, State Civil Supplies Minister Kodali Venkateswara Rao said.
“Rice distributed by the previous government had a lot of adulteration and was not of good quality —- about 10-15 varieties of rice was mixed and distributed through PDS. People complained to (Chief Minister) Jagan Mohan Reddy that the rice distributed was often inedible. So we decided to provide only one variety of quality rice,” the minister said.
By the end of April 2020, the state government aims to provide rice at the doorstep of nearly 1.50 crore beneficiaries across the state through this scheme.
