Hyderabad, January 12: The State government has decided to extend the programme of supplying packaged vegetables and onions under market intervention to all the district headquarters and municipalities in the State.
Announcing this to media persons after the Chief Minister’s review meeting on the skyrocketing prices of onions and vegetables in the market, the Minister for Civil Supplies, Mr D Sridhar Babu, said that the packaged vegetables at the rate of Rs 99 and Rs 49 and onions supply with Market Intervention was being implemented in nine Rythu Bazaars in the twin cities. Besides taking steps to stabilize the market, the government has adopted market intervention measures to bring down the soaring prices of essential commodities.
Claiming that the entire country was facing scarcity of onions and steep hike in its price, the Minister said that the Marketing department would start procuring onions from today from the available places and supply them to the places where there was acute scarcity. Keeping in view the festive season, the Chief Minister has taken the decision to see that the price hike would not cause hardship to the common people. Besides, it was also decided to provide free transportation facility to vegetable growers to transport their produce to Hyderabad and sell them. The RTC has already been consulted for the purpose”, he added.
Claiming that Rs 2-a-kg rice scheme was a priority subject to the government, Mr Sridhar Babu made it clear that the government was keen on providing white ration cards to all eligible families in the State. Indirectly referring to the bogus ration cards weeding drive, he said that 12 lakh families, which possessed white ration cards, were not eligible for the facility. At the same time, seven lakh applications have been received for new white ration cards, he added. The Civil Supplies department conducted verification and inquiry on the applications and found that five lakh applicants were eligible for white ration card facility. The Cabinet Sub-Committee has also conveyed to the Chief Minister that white ration cards should be issued to these five lakh applicants. The Chief Minister was yet to take a decision in the matter, he added.
NSS