Kolkata: West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday said her government was providing food security to 90 per cent people in the state in a scheme under which food grains at Rs 2 per kg or half the market price are given to the beneficiaries.
Ms Banerjee also said that special assistance was also being given to the people of once Maoist-hit Jangalmahal, hill areas, cyclone ‘Aila’ affected region and Singur.
“Remembering the martyrs of 1959 Khadya Andolan (food movement). In Bangla, we provide food security to 90% (8.59 crore) of the state’s people through the Khadya Sathi scheme under which food grains at Rs 2 per kilogramme or half the market rate are provided to the beneficiaries,” Ms Banerjee wrote on her Twitter handle.
“We also provide rice and wheat through PDS to the families of tea garden workers and to the Toto tribe in north Bengal,” she said.
West Bengal had witnessed a mass movement in the late 1958 by the then undivided CPI and other left groups protesting against the food crisis. The movement for food (Khadya Andolon) reached its peak in August 1959.
