Anantapur: Time to rethink on NTR rice, with beneficiaries selling in open market

Anantapur-Puttaparthi: At a time when the NTR rice subsidy scheme is so much in the news about alleged smuggling of ‘NTR rice’ from Kakinada port to countries abroad, a debate is going on the need for scrapping the very scheme itself as the smuggling of the rice to other countries is only a tip of the ice-berg.

‘More than 60 percent of the beneficiaries themselves are watering down the original objective of the scheme.’ The beneficiaries take pride in telling others that they are consuming Sona Masuri and not theNTR rice.

A big open racket is going on, with the beneficiaries themselves disposing the rice to kirana shops, hotels and middlemen, who are stake holders in the racket.

Mangamma, a beneficiary from Lenin Nagar, said that her family buys Sona Masuri rice, as the subsidy rice is not fit for consumption.

She said that they use the subsidy rice for making breakfast and when the quantity is more, will sell it to kirana shops.

Some rice dealers reportedly suggest the beneficiaries to sell the rice to themselves. It was alleged that some dealers are directly giving them money instead of rice.

Vijay Kumar, a social worker,wonders, “What does smuggling or selling rice to hotels indicate? What it indicates when these so-called poorer sections say that they eat only Sona Rice?” Does this indicate that they are no longer poorest of the poor? he questions.

The government’s hand holding of the weaker sections in multiple forms had economically empowered them so much, the need arises to redefine poverty.

The NTR’s infamous rice scheme, which once made the former CM NT Ram Rao as God of the poor, has now become a laughing stock. This is a clear indication that people’s purchasing power has increased and that people no longer needed the same handholding as in 1980s.

So, for all practical purposes 60-70 percent of the beneficiaries are not consuming the NTR rice any longer.

Instead of probing who and where the subsidised rice is being smuggled, time has come for the government to take a re-look at the need for the dis-continuance of the rice scheme and limit the supply to the real needy.

Raghavendra, a business man, says if the government removes the criterion that the beneficiaries must take PDS rice every month inorder to retain their multi-purpose social security ration card, then millions of card holders will stop taking rice and save the most valuable treasury exchequer from wasting away.