Tripura Appeals to Centre to Enhance Supply of PDS Goods

Agartala, Dec 17 : Taking serious note of depleting rice stock, the Tripura government has appealed to the Centre to enhance supply of PDS items to tide over the situation, officials said today.

In a letter addressed to the Union Food and Civil Supplies Minster Sharad Pawar, Tripura Food Minister Manik Dey has expressed concern over the dwindling stock of PDS goods especially rice during the past few months, they said.

Dey said the present food stock stands at an all-time low in the state godowns in spite of repeated pleas for enhancing the supply of rice.

The state is supposed to receive 40 wagons and 50 trucks of rice in a month but the Food Corporation of India fails to supply even half the requirement, the minister said in the letter.
"If the situation continues, the rice stock will be exhausted causing alarming situation in the landlocked state," he said.

Dey said Tripura which needs 23,600 metric tonnes of rice under PDS, has been struggling to build buffer stock of food stuff owing to irregular food supply.

Meanwhile, MPs Khagen Das and Bajuban Riang met the Chairman-cum-Managing Director (CMD) of FCI Siraj Hussain in Delhi last evening and demanded improvement of rice supply to Tripura.

FCI sources, however, claim there is no shortage of rice in the state''s godowns but transportation problem has come in the way of normal supply of PDS items.