Nagaland Voluntary Consumers’ Organisation (NVCO) has appealed to the state government agencies “to be more fair and honest in the distribution of food grains” to beneficiaries under the National Food Security Act 2013.
NVCO through its media cell maintained that this would be of great food relief for citizens, especially the poorer sections during the total lockdown.
NVCO stated that the department of food and public distribution under ministry of consumer affairs, food and public distribution, decided to allocate grains free of cost 5 kg per person per month to nearly 79.88 crore beneficiaries covered under national food and security Act (AAY, PHH and DBT) over and above NFSA allocation for a period of two months (May and June).
NVCO has appealed to all the agencies dealing with distribution of food grains to be fair in order to ensure food security to citizens, where most were daily wage earner, labourers, business community, private job holders, etc.
NVCO informed that pregnant and lactating women would be entitled to free meals during pregnancy and six months after child birth.
While informing that they would also receive maternity benefit of at least Rs.6000 which included mid-day meal, integrated child development services scheme, NVCO stated that National Food Security Act was not just a scheme but a law in which poor families, lactating mothers and children could claim the schemes as a right if their entitlement were not received.