Jairam Ramesh tears into BJP for inflating "food bill subsidy" of Karnataka, seeks compensation

New Delhi [India], July 5 : Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh hit out at the Prime Minister asking if he would apologise for obstructing the Karnataka government from implementing its schemes, for "inflating the food bill subsidy" and also asked whether the Bharatiya Janata Party legislators from the state would seek fair compensation from the Centre.
"Will the non-biological Prime Minister, who withdrew his "Aashirwaad" to Karnataka after the state voted in a Congress government in May 2023, apologise to the 6.5 crore people of Karnataka for disrespecting their mandate and obstructing their democratically elected State Government from implementing its schemes?" Ramesh said in a statement on Friday.
"Will the non-biological Prime Minister apologise to the tax-payers of India, for inflating the food bill subsidy by an estimated Rs 16000- Rs 18000 crore, by stopping the sale of excess rice stock to Karnataka and other states?" the senior Congress leader questioned.
"Will the 17 BJP MPs and the 2 JD(S) MPs elected from Karnataka, and the Cabinet Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution - also from Karnataka - seek fair compensation from the Government of India for the injustice done to the poorest of poor in Karnataka?" Ramesh further asked.
The Congress General Secretary said that on June 13, 2023, the Narendra Modi government stopped selling rice to state governments under the Open Market Sale Scheme (Domestic), reversing the Food Corporation of India's orders to Karnataka issued the day before.
"This irrational policy was undertaken with the sole intention of disrupting the Karnataka Government's Anna Bhagya Scheme, which doubles the quota of rice available to each individual entitled to grain under the National Food Security Act (2013)," Ramesh claimed.
With the Modi Government refusing to sell the state adequate rice to implement the scheme, it was only the Karnataka Government's determination and proactiveness that allowed it to continue the scheme, through a cash transfer of Rs 170 per month for each eligible beneficiary to defray expenses for purchasing 5kg of rice, the senior Congress leader said.
"A year later, evidence has emerged showing that this vendetta-driven decision not only deprived the people of Karnataka of an additional 5 kilograms of rice through the Anna Bhagya Guarantee, but also increased India's food subsidy bill by tens of thousands of crores," he said.
Jairam Ramesh said that the claims made by the Narendra Modi government last year - of depleted rice stocks owing to poor monsoon and high prices - to justify its discontinuation of the sale of rice through OMSS(D) scheme were blatantly false.
"In reality, as revealed by a report from the Hindustan Times on July 4, 2024, the government is storing 50 million tonnes of rice (three times the required buffer of 13.54 million tonnes). It costs the FCI Rs 3975 to buy, transport and stock one quintal (100 kg) of rice," he said.
The Congress General Secretary said that with the Budget looming, the government has finally woken up to the huge cost imposed by the "non-biological Prime Minister's vendetta politics" - and has finally decided to resume rice sales to states.