Senior officials of the State Food Department said the BJP government at the Centre gave two conditions to the state under the NFSA.
“One, a flex or banners carrying a photograph of the Prime Minister should be placed in front of every ration shop, and second the National Food Safety Authority (NFSA) logo must be on the acknowledgment slip issued from the Point of Sale (POS) machine after taking the ration… We did not follow both of these conditions. Initially, the Central government issued a warning, but later decided to stop giving money to the state under the scheme,” a senior official of the Department said.
According to state government officials, the Centre used to give the money under the NFSA to buy food for six crore eligible beneficiaries in the state. “After the Centre withheld payment of Rs 7,000 crore to West Bengal, the state government started procurement of paddy for distribution to people through the public distribution system. The state government set a target of procuring 70 lakh tonnes in the 2022-23 financial year. However, till now, the state managed to procure 30 per cent of the target,” said a senior official of the department, adding 70 lakh tonnes paddy is meant to be distributed to over two crore people in the state through the public distribution system.
In the 2021-2022 financial year, the state government had set a target to procure 55 lakh tonnes of paddy and subsequently was able to procure 50 lakh tonnes.
The process of paddy procurement continues till the first week of February.
After the MGNREGA (rural job guarantee scheme) and PM Awas Yojana (PMAY), this is the third scheme, under which the BJP-led government at the Centre has decided to withhold payment to the TMC government in West Bengal.
At present, two central agencies – the CBI and Enforcement Directorate (ED) — are probing alleged irregularities in the public distribution system (PDS) and have arrested state minister Jyoti Priya Mallick and his two close aides. Mallick held the portfolio of Food and Supplies from 2011 to 2021.