New ration card holders to get kerosene for Pongal

Chennai, Jan 10 (UNI) The Tamil Nadu Cabinet today decided to provide one litre kerosene each to new ration card holders on the occasion of Pongal festival and continue the supply in the coming months.

The new card holders were hitherto not given kerosene and the Cabinet, chaired by Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, as a special case, decided to provide each card holder a litre of kerosene, an official release here said.

As part of revamping the Public Distribution System (PDS), fake ration cards were eliminated and fresh cards were being issued to eligible families. So far, 20 lakh new cards each in urban and rural areas have been issued, it said.

The 24th Cabinet decided to speed up the issue of house site pattas. So far, only those residing in Government poromboke lands for more than ten years were issued pattas and the Cabinet today decided to issue pattas to those residing for five years and above, it said.

The Government had earlier decided to provide house site pattas to those residing in Government lands and if those lands were not required for the Government.

In the District Collectors' conference held in July last, a target was fixed to issue three lakh house site pattas by March 2008. However, the target was achieved by the end of December 2007 itself, the release said.

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