Agartala, Jan 30, 2024, TRIPURA TIMES Desk

Agartala, Jan 30: Minister for Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs on Tuesday announced that a total of 51 new ration shops would be introduced in the state soon.
 
Addressing a press conference at the civil secretary, Chowdhury said, a total of 2,060 fair price shops are presently functioning in the state. The number of new ration shops opened in the past five years is 252.
 
He said, a decision has been taken to open more 51 ration shops. The ration shops having 800 or more card holders would be divided for implementing the decision.
 
The Food minister, as per the norms, the minimum number of tagged ration cards should be 400 in rural or urban areas for opening new ration cards.
 
The new ration shops would come up at Dharmanagar (7), Panisagar (1), Kanchanpur (1), Kailashahar (3), Kumarghat (5), Kamalpur (2), Khowai (1), Teliamura (2), Jirania (6), Mohanpur (1), Bishalgarh (1), Sadar (2), Sonamura (6), Udaipur (8), Belonia (1), Sabroom (3) and Karbook (1) sub-divisions, Chowdhury said.
 
He also spoke about other important decisions of the Food department. All ration card holder families would get additional 5 kg rice each in the months of February and March at Rs. 13/ kg. A total of 10,000 MT rice would be required additionally to implement the decision.
 
The Food minister next said that the daily wage of 26 women cleaning workers engaged in central store of the department at A.D. Nagar under Sadar sub-division would be hiked from Rs. 150 to Rs. 306.
 
Another important decision of the Food department, Chowdhury said, is distribution of dairy products of Gomati such as ice cream, curd, ghee and paneer would be distributed through Public Distribution System. Initially, 15 ration shops under the Sadar sub-division have been identified for the pilot project.
 
Food secretary Raval Hamendra Kumar, director Nirmal Adhikary and deputy secretary Animesh Debbarma were also present in the press conference.