Date:13/09/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/09/13/stories/2006091312620400.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

Norms for ration cards to be relaxed

Staff Reporter

The move will help over six lakh families

BANGALORE: The Government has decided to relax the eligibility conditions for families living below the poverty line to obtain ration cards. This will help over six lakh families, Minister for Food and Civil Supplies Govind M. Karjol has said.

He told presspersons here on Tuesday that at present those owning a certain acreage of wetland and dry land, personal telephone, cellphone, two-wheeler or those who had obtained bank loans over Rs. 1 lakh were not eligible for such ration cards. In the interests of social justice such conditions would either be relaxed or withdrawn. However, families or persons with an income exceeding Rs. 12,000 a month and paying income tax were not eligible for the ration cards, he said.

The issue would come up before the Cabinet on Wednesday, the Minister said. Once the Cabinet ratified it, the Government would have to bear an additional expenditure of Rs. 100 crore in addition to the Rs. 720 crore earmarked in the budget for the scheme.

The Government did not intend to conduct a fresh survey for the purpose, Mr. Karjol said. The decision to bring more families under the purview of the BPL category ration cards was only an effort to rationalise some of the existing conditions and set right anomalies, he said.

Consumer parishat

The Government had convened a meeting of the State Consumer Protection Parishat after a gap of two years. It would discuss various measures, including the need to evolve norms to ensure its effective functioning and create consumer awareness among rural people, he said.

Although the parishat had been organising programmes for solving various problems faced by consumers at the district and taluk levels, there was a need to organise publicity oriented programmes in rural areas. The meeting decided to nominate district information officers as members of the respective district units of the parishat for the purpose, he said.

The Government had prepared a comprehensive Rs. 2-crore action plan for creating consumer awareness at various levels. The action plan would be placed before the Cabinet on Wednesday, he said.