Maharashtra: Free foodgrain arrives for migrants, but after most have left the state

While Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced the free foodgrain scheme for migrants on May 14 as part of the second tranche of the Centre’s ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ package, state officials admitted to delays in finalisation of the modalities for its implementation

A day after the Supreme Court put the onus on states to provide food to migrant workers, the Uddhav Thackeray government is set to roll out the much-delayed scheme of supplying free ration to such households.

According to scheme, each household will get 10 kg of rice per person free of cost under the state government’s public distribution system. The scheme will, however, be rolled out after most of the intended beneficiaries have already left the state.

While Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced the free foodgrain scheme for migrants on May 14 as part of the second tranche of the Centre’s ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ package, state officials admitted to delays in finalisation of the modalities for its implementation.

State Secretary (Food and Civil Supplies) Sanjay Khandare said, “The Centre’s guidelines came some days post the announcement. Since there was no was set mechanism for such distribution, we had to first list beneficiaries. A mapping exercise was undertaken with the help of district collectors, local bodies, state labour and industries departments, and the police. This took a while.”

One of the searing images of the Covid-19 pandemic in India has been the displacement of the migrant workforce, many of whom were left to fend for themselves for the first two months amid mass closures of their workplaces. Waking up to their plight, the Centre had earlier this month declared free ration supplies in May and June for them.

In Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), for instance, the department’s mapping has now located only 1.24 lakh probable beneficiaries. This at a time when the government’s own records indicate that at least eight lakh stranded migrants from other states and another two lakh from within the state have travelled back to their respective villages in the last month or so.

Khandare said the free ration supplies will be distributed through fair price shops, with district collectors being empowered to decide the number and location of these shops.

In urban belts of MMR, the distribution exercise will be overseen by the Controller of Rationing and Director of Civil Supplies, Kailash Pagare. While the region has a network of 4,223 fair price shops, Pagare said that 2,135 among these have been identified for the distribution exercise. Each intended beneficiary has been mapped to one ration shop.

For better outreach, Pagare said, the local councillor or MLA and community groups will also be made a part of the exercise. A nodal person has been appointed for each centre. While Pagare said that vigilance committees comprising NGOs, activists and rationing staff will be deployed at these centre’s to curb instances of diversion of the free foodgrain, officials did not rule out the possibility of such leaks given that some of the mapped migrants may have returned to their villages by now.

The Centre has also permitted distribution to native daily wage earners under the scheme on the condition that they should also not be ration card holders. The Aadhaar card of the beneficiary will mainly be used to verify that he is not an existing ration card holder, said Pagare.

The department is also grappling with another problem – timely lifting of the foodgrain stock from the Food Corporation of India godowns, with much of its own labour force also returning to their villages. The Centre has asked states to lift the full free foodgrain stock by May 31. About 3,200 metric tonne rice is targetted to the distributed in Mumbai under the scheme, said Pagare.