Our most ambitious scheme—the chief minister’s food security scheme—was launched in April 2007. It envisages rice for every BPL family, irrespective of caste and community, at Rs 3 a kg. Initially, 12.14 lakh SC/ST families were brought under its ambit but from January this year, we have been able to provide 35 kg of rice at Rs 3 for each of the 33.02 BPL families in the state.

Policy planners now tell us that costs of subsidies like these are immense. I don’t have an argument with them but I have seen that the costs of not giving these subsidies are far higher and have such spiraling effects on the entire population and economy that it literally sets us back by centuries. The government has set aside Rs 837 crore for the Food Security scheme—part of it is funded by the Centre but we still have to put an extra Rs 352 crore annually to keep the scheme running. To add to our burden, the Centre has reduced our APL share of rice by nearly 57,000 metric tonnes per month while we are one of the few states that contribute generously to the central grain pool.

The Centre has also consistently refused to listen to our pleas about the number of BPL families in the state. It works on the assumption of that there are only 18.75 lakh BPL families in the state while it is actually twice the size at 33.02 lakh families. My government nevertheless works for all the families and has made provisions accordingly.

... contd.