Ration distribution to card applicants starts

NEWDELHI: The Delhi government on Wednesday started distributing additional ration to thousands of poor families in the city, who are yet to get ration cards, under a scheme to ensure delivery of essential food items to households, amid the ongoing 21-day nationwide lockdown imposed to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

“Wheat and rice for distribution among people not covered under the public distribution system of essential items were delivered in around 400 school buildings across the city on Tuesday. The beneficiaries would be able to avail of five kilograms of ration,” said Delhi’s food minister, Imran Hussain. Delhi’s revenue minister Kailash Gahlot said, “In this fight against coronavirus, the Delhi government will ensure that nobody stays hungry.”

On Wednesday, Hussain and Gahlot reviewed the ration distribution system and briefed chief minister Arvind Kejriwal about the same.

Environment minister Gopal Rai has been entrusted with sanitation of the warehouses, transit points and agriculture markets. Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia is in charge of food distribution programme in shelter homes and hunger centres across the city, where the government is currently providing meals to around 1.3 million individuals daily.

The chief minister has asked all 70 MLAS in the city to ensure that people in their assembly constituencies concerned get ration cards.

Delhi has around 7.1 million ration beneficiaries, according to a senior official in the chief minister’s office, who said that this scheme would see the addition of 1.1 million beneficiaries to the records. HTC