Chief Minister Raman Singh will attend the rice festival at a fair price shop in a remote village in tribal Sarguja district while his ministers, MPs, MLAs, other elected representatives of panchayat bodies and party functionaries would attend similar programmes in all the 18 districts. The state has already announced that it will supply five kg of wheat a month at Rs 2 per kg to BPL families at all those places where people prefer to have wheat.

“Certainly, it’s a campaign to reach out to the masses and to make them aware about the welfare and other schemes. After all, the objective is to ensure that all eligible persons availed the benefits,” N Baijendra Kumar, Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister, told The Indian Express.

Banners, posters and leaflets — highlighting the details of the various welfare schemes — would be provided at all the 10,465 ration shops in the state. Government staff would also brief the people about the schemes, he added.

Launched before the November 2008 Assembly polls, the Raman Singh Government’s subsidised rice scheme for providing rice at Rs 3 per kg to 37 lakh BPL families had entailed a burden of about Rs 840 crore on the state exchequer. During the Assembly elections, the BJP promised to modify the scheme and said it will supply rice at Rs 2 per kg to BPL families and at Rs 1 to the poorest among the poor if the party retained power in the elections. In the subsequent Lok Sabha polls, the BJP put up an impressive show, winning 10 out of 11 seats in the state.

While implementing the modified food security scheme, which now costs over Rs 1,440 crore, the CM’s new focus is on “nutritional security” to check the problem of malnutrition among children and water conservation for which a plan is being worked out.