According to the data of Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution only 2.13 crore out of 8 crore migrant workers who do not have ration card got 5 kg foodgrain per month for the month of May(1.21 crore) and June(92.44 lakh).
The special allocation was made by the Centre to give foodgrain to the returned migrant workers who didn’t have a ration card. This move was made due to anger expressed across the nation for allowing workers to find a job in urban cities for meagre earnings to fulfil their two meals for their family. Many economists blamed the government for not providing job, shelter to the workers in their native places.
At least 26 states and UTs have taken the special allocation but it is not reaching to all migrant workers in any one of this state.
For Uttar Pradesh alone 1,42,033 metric tonnes was allocated and it is higher than any state in the country. Still the state distributed only 3,324 metric tonnes to 4.39 lakh migrants in May and 2,25 lakh migrants in June. The food quantity reached is only 2% of the allocated grains.
In Bihar also only 2% of the allocated grains reached to the 3.68 lakh migrants in May and none in the month of June. Out of 86.450 metric tonnes, only 1.842 metric tonnes of food grains were distributed.
11 states and 1 UT didn’t even allocate 1% of the food grains received from the centre in the month of June. These states are Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Ladakh, Maharashtra, Meghalaya, Odisha, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Tripura.
Odisha took 388 metric tonnes out of 32,360 metric tonnes. Madhya Pradesh took 1,963 out of 54,642 metric tonnes(4%). Chhattisgarh took 944 tonnes out of 20,077 metric tonnes(5%). These states are taking a lesser amount of foodgrains from the centre.
7 states including Goa and Telangana cannot implement the scheme as migrant workers already have moved from their states.
Rajasthan allocated 42,478 metric tonnes out of 44,662 metric tonnes (95%) to the migrant workers in May and June. It is the only state to lift 100 % of its allocated grains and distributed to 95% migrants.
Haryana, Assam, Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka performed well in distributing the foodgrains to the migrant workers tells ministry’s data.
Ram Vilas Paswan said,” it is a matter of concern that poor people are not getting the foodgrains. When it’s given free, why distribution not made. We are take this issue seriously.”