5kg wheat for FSC holders

Hyderabad: With the Centre rejecting Telangana government’s plea to replace wheat with rice, the State has decided to supply five kg of wheat to each food security card holder at Rs 2 per kg under National Food Security Act (NFSA) from this month.

Replying to a question posed by AIMIM legislators during question hour in the Assembly on Saturday, the State Finance and Civil Supplies Minister E Rajendar said the government requested centre to supply rice in the place of 8000 Metric tonnes of wheat allotted this month as the consumption of cereal was low in the State.

The government would have got a big relief had the Centre agreed to supply required rice under food security programme, he said. The Centre is supplying five kg rice to each person for 1.98 crore people holding food security cards only. But, the total number of people availing the subsidised rice scheme were 2.21 crore in the State.

The government was spending Rs 7,200 crore on rice purchase every year, he said. Referring to the issuance of new ration cards, Rajendar said the total number of applications received so far were 1.01 crore out of which 11.22 lakh have been rejected. The eligible persons would be given cards at the earliest, he informed.

On the request of the MIM Floor Leader Akbaruddin Owaisi, the Minister said he would convene a meeting with Hyderabad MLAs to address the delay in the issuance of ration cards in twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad.