Union food, public distribution and consumer affairs minister, Ramvilas Paswan, on Monday said that the government had weeded out 2.33 crore bogus and defunct ration cards.
"Seeding Aadhar with ration cards had helped in the detection of bogus ration cards. Ultimately it is the states who benefit out of this," said Paswan addressing a media conference in Delhi.
"I do not understand what the problem with some states is. If states like West Bengal wants to live with leakage of government's foodgrain subsidy, then let them live with it," Paswan said, on some states refusing to seed Aadhar cards with ration cards.
Pawar said that the volume of unpaid dues of sugar companies from farmers had subsided to comfortable levels.
"Current year cane arrears stand to somewhere around Rs 7,500 crore in the ongoing cane crushing season and another Rs 822 crore dues of mills that have closed down and were unable to pay farmers," Paswan clarified on farmers' cane arrears.
The minister said that pilot projects of Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) programme had faced road blocks in the pilots conducted at three places—Chandigarh, Puducherry and in Daman and Diu.
"There are some teething problems. Banking facility is not there with many people in remote areas," said Paswan. Preeti Sudan, food and consumer affairs secretary, said that the pilots will be reviewed but not withdrawn.
Pasan said that the government is making efforts to ensure maximum procurement of pulses from domestic farmers. In states like Maharashtra and Karnataka, there had been reports that farmers were forced to sell their pulses crops at lower than minimum support prices.
The government imported more than 50 lakh tonnes of all lentil crops during the past fiscal. Paswan said that the 10 per cent import duty on wheat will continue till the situation is reviewed going ahead.
So far, wheat harvest in the country this year is expected to reach record levels, on the back of which government purchase of wheat is likely to jump to 271 lakh tonne, as compared to 245 lakh tonne purchased last year.
