The Bengal Government will not adhere to the “one nation one ration card” scheme as it already has a “unique policy” in place, State Food and Civil Supplies Minister Jyotipriya Mullick said on Thursday.
Soon after Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s declaration that the entire country would be covered under the ONOR within a specific period of time, Mullick said “One thing is for sure that Bengal is not going to be a part of this scheme because we already have a different scheme in place.”
The Minister said “our State had taken this decision more than six months ago because we are already running a scheme called Khadya Saathi that ensures food for all,” adding “at least for the time being we can say that Bengal’s response to the central scheme is in thenegative.”
If Bengal chooses to disregard the ONOR then it will be yet another scheme that the State Government will not fall in line with as Bengal had earlier refused to implement schemes like Ayushman Bharat.
Congress Lok Sabha leader Adhir Chowdhury too slammed the Centre for doing too little and too late for the starving millions, “particularly the migrant workers who became the victim of the Centre’s unplanned implementation of lockdown.”
Attacking the Narendra Modi Government for making the “rendering migrant workers into migrant beggars,” he said “these people who have become jobless and walking back home because of the unplanned implementation of the lockdown are not begging for food… they only want an alternative employment so that they can earn their food themselves… The government is making them migrant beggars.”
He also said that the OCOR was nothing new or for that matter providing of free ration to the poor also a scheme that was already in place for many decades as was the country’s public distribution system.
“There is no credit in making announcements of things which were already there. Instead of making futile declarations the Government should have taken steps to reach cash in the pockets of these people who are also consumers so that they can survive in these hours of crisis and the country’s economy too gets some kind of fillip,” he said.
