NAC recommends food security cover for 80 crore people

New Delhi, Oct.23 (ANI): Congress President Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) here on Saturday recommended food security cover for roughly eighty crore people in the country through Public Distribution System network.

It has suggested the implementation of the first phase of the proposed food security legislation from the beginning of next financial year and covering the entire country by 2014.

The recommendations were finalised at the sixth meeting of the Council held in New Delhi today.

The NAC also decided to set aside the Below Poverty Line (BPL) criteria and suggested two broad categories - priority and general - eligible for legal foodgrain entitlement under the proposed food security law.

It states that under the priority category, 35 kilograms of food grains should be provided every month at the subsidised rate of two rupees a kilogram for wheat, three rupees a kg for rice and one rupee kg for millets.

The recommendation for the general category households is for a legal monthly entitlement of 20 kilograms of food grains at a price not exceeding 50 per cent of the minimum support price.

Later, a member of the NAC Narendra Jadva said the first phase of the implementation may cost an additional expenditure of over 15,000 crore rupees in food subsidiaries.

The NAC has also suggested universalising primary healthcare, extending nutrition and health support to adolescent girls, strengthening the school health programme, the programme for Vitamin A, iodine and iron supplementation and the national programme for creches. (ANI)