CHANDIGARH: The Centre has asked the Punjab Government to verify the antecedents of 11 lakh “suspicious” beneficiaries under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) and weed them out by September 30.But, as the paddy procurement season is set to start and the state food and civil supplies department officials will be busy, sources said that the state would seek six months time for the verification and weeding out process.Besides, the government will seek details of the database from the Centre before the verification starts.Under NFSA, there are reportedly eight crore ‘suspicious’ beneficiaries across the country of which 11 lakh are in Punjab. They were identified from the database of the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs, Central Board of Direct Taxes, Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare and the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, sources said. The Centre recently shared the data with the state government.It is learnt that these beneficiaries are either income tax payers, directors in companies, own more than five acres of land or a four-wheeler. So, these beneficiaries cannot be considered in the economically ba category, the union government pointed out.The NFSA is a landmark law that aims to provide subsidized food grains to a large portion of the population. Sources in the state food and civil supplies department said that Punjab has 40.50 lakh ration card holders covering a population of 1.53 crore people under NFSA. The beneficiaries are provided 5 kg of wheat per person in the family, every month at a nominal cost of Rs 2 per kg.A total of 32,500 metric tonnes of wheat is being distributed to the people under the scheme, each month.
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