In distributing COVID-19 relief of ₹ 4,000 do not discriminate among Public Distribution System (ration) card holders, the Coimbatore Consumer Cause has urged the State government.
In a letter to the Chief Minister, the consumer bod’s Secretary K. Kathirmathiyon said it could not find a reason why the government discriminated among rice, sugar or no-commodity card holders when everybody was affected by COVID-19.
The choice was only for the type of commodity that the card holders wanted and therefore, it was wrong to provide relief to only rice card holders.
He further said that the government would also do well to enhance the COVID-19 relief to families falling in the ‘below poverty line’ category or the well-deserving category like auto rickshaw drivers, pushcart vendors, daily wage earners among others.
While doing so, the government could also consider withdrawing the relief to its employees, teachers, Central government employees, employees of State and Central public sector undertakings, private sector employees falling under the high net worth individuals, MLAs and MPs, income tax payers and government pensioners.
Of the 2.14 crore tax payers in the State, the people falling under the aforementioned categories constituted a significant number, Mr. Kathirmathiyon said.
As a first step, the government should start preparing database of people falling under the aforementioned categories and if the relief was withdrawn to those category card holders it would enable to it increase the relief to those in the deserving category, he added.
