New Delhi: Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Wednesday accused the BJP-led government at the Centre of “conspiring” to fail the state government’s Anna Bhagya scheme by denying states from purchasing rice from Food Corporation of India.
Under the scheme, the Congress-led Karnataka government had promised to provide 10kg of free rice each month to every member of a Below Poverty Line household. In a press conference, Siddaramaiah said that on 12 June, his government and the Food Corporation of India came to an agreement over the purchase of 2.22 lakh metric tonnes of rice.
However, on 13 June, the Union Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food, and Public Distribution issued a directive to the FCI that did away with the scheme of selling wheat and rice to state governments under the Open Market Sale Scheme (Domestic). Only the Northeast states were exempted.
Siddaramaiah alleged that the Centre’s action was an effort to “play politics” in the issue of free provision of rice to the underprivileged. He accused the Centre of being “anti-poor” and seeking failure of the Congress-led government in Karnataka in implementing the scheme. In the press conference, he mentioned that his government was trying to procure rice from other state governments.
The Siddaramaiah-led government has assured that all five pre-poll promises made by the party in the run up to the assembly elections will be implemented in this fiscal year itself.
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