Bihar to get double food subsidy and foodgrain allocation under National Food Security Act

The Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh on 6 October 2013 announced that the food subsidy and foodgrain allocation would be doubled for the state of Bihar under the National Food Security Act.

Jairam Ramesh announced that Bihar's food subsidy will increase from 5500 crore Rupees to 11500 crore Rupees, under the National Food Security Act. This means that the allocation of foodgrain will increase from 28 lakh tonnes to 56 lakh tonnes.

Under the National Food Security Act, Bihar will benefit the most. This was done in order to improve the public distribution system (PDS) in the state, which was in a bad shape.

Jairam Ramesh explained that the population of Bihar was more than Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, but the PDS shops were comparatively less than these two states. This indicated the level of poverty in Bihar.  For this reason, changes in the PDS network in Bihar were brought out to implement the National Food Security Act in a right way.

Apart from Bihar, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh would be other three major beneficiaries under the new Act. Uttar Pradesh will get 96 lakh tones of foodgrains per annum under the National Food Security Act in comparison to the current allotment of 65 lakh tonnes. Gujarat, in the meanwhile, will get 24 lakh tonnes from the current allocation of 13.5 lakh tonnes per annum at present.