No immediate plans to implement food coupon programme: Govt

New Delhi, Aug 31 (UNI) The government has no immediate plans to implement the food coupon programme in the country as the pilot project faced difficulty in some states but emphasised that states are free to run the scheme if they so desired.

''We have no plans to implement the scheme,'' said Minister of State for Agriculture and Consumer Affairs Akhilesh Prasad Singh, while winding up the debate in the Lok Sabha on the private member's bill on nutrition security scheme, moved by Mr Naveen Jindal(Cong).

The minister said the scheme was dropped since some difficulties were there in its implementation, but stressed that states were free to implement that if they were in its favour.

Stating that it is a collective responsibility of the Centre and the state governments to implement such schemes, the minister said the efforts were being made to further strengthen the Public Distribution Scheme(PDS), for which alone the Centre gave a subsidy of Rs 25,000 crore.

Reacting to the Left Parties' concerns that retrenchments were taking place in his ministry, he emphasised that there is no truth in such reports as ''ours is essentially a welfare state''.

He said the government was committed to providing nutrition security to every citizen of the country, especially the poorest of the poor, and had many a plan up its sleeve, including the Planning Commission considering a proposal in that regard.

Quoting extensive facts and figures, the minister sought to prove the point that the UPA government since its inception over three years ago had not only reduced the number of people from over 5 crore to 2.5 crore who did not have two meals a day in 2004 during the NDA regime.

The minister said a Working Group on Food Security had also been set up, which would soon come out with its report and, if necessary, the recommendations and the suggestions given by MPs, would be incorporated.

Referring to Mr Jindal's suggestion on the Zero Hunger programme and Anti Hunger Act, 2007 of the UN, the minister said as compared to certain nutrition security scheme in Brazil and the US, they are in the nascent or rudimentary stages.

''We are running the PDS in a manner that benefit over 62 crore people of BPL families... Besides, we have several other such schemes for the poor, the unemployed, students, pregnant women, girls and the elderly,'' he added.

Earlier, the members, however, expressed concern over starvation deaths still taking place in the country and widespread malnutrition among children despite the government's schemes.

UNI