PRO junks NFSA rice snub slur on ex-MLA Henry
Source: Chronicle News Service

Imphal, June 04 2021: Refuting the allegations levelled by BJP Wangkhei Mandal president against ex-MLA of Wangkhei assembly constituency O Henry regarding NFSA rice allocation, the PRO of the ex-MLA had said that the allegations are baseless and he welcomes the fact-finding committee to investigate the matter as everything is on official record.

A statement issued by his PRO on Thursday said that only 35 per cent of the total population of Wangkhei AC were beneficiaries of NFSA when Y Erabot was the MLA of the constituency.

After Henry became MLA, he initiated mass enrolment campaign and 65 per cent of the total population of Wangkhei are now eligible to avail NFSA benefits.

All the allocations from March to November 2020 were distributed to the beneficiaries and Henry even had to procure rice from open market sale and wholesale market for distribution to the public as the NFSA allocation was not enough to cover all.

Every individual who has attained 5 years of age was provided 5 kg of rice.

This year too, allocations for January to March were distributed to the beneficiaries and detailed documents for the same are available in the department concerned, the statement said.

Regarding the delay in linking Aadhaar, the statement said that documents collected from the beneficiaries through the FPS agents were submitted to the DSO Imphal East.

However, only two staff are engaged in Aadhaar linking process for the whole Imphal East district and as such, there was delay.

In 2018, many of the documents were lost in a flood but were recovered and recompiled and many of them have already been updated.

Unfortunately, Covid pandemic coupled with server issue at NIC hampered the official documentation process while several cards were cancelled by the ministry due to errors in data entry and other reasons.

There is no question of the ex-MLA withholding NFSA cards, it added.

The statement further clarified that the then MLA did not use amount collected from the beneficiaries.

The office of the DSO charges Rs 50 for renewal of ration card and Rs 100 for issuing new card.

As such, the amount collected for renewal were deposited to the CAF&PD inspector while the amount for issuing new cards was borne by the then MLA.

Today, people are suffering due to the second wave of Covid-19 and beneficiaries are getting only four kg of rice per head while non-bene- ficiaries are not getting the assistance.

It is unfortunate for the new MLA to play blame game instead of looking into the hardships of his public.

Today, no CHICs are functioning properly in the constituency but in the first wave, the then MLA opened 12 quarantine centres to contain the virus, the statement added.

Comment