CM to roll out Duare Ration today

KOLKATA: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will officially roll-out Duare Ration (Ration at Doorstep) project on Tuesday.

"We have successfully completed piloting of the project across the state. About 50 per cent of the ration shops have been covered in the pilot project. Soon after Chief Minister's official launch, the project will be implemented in all the districts," Rathin Ghosh, state Food and Supplies minister said.

Initially from September 16, the project was launched in 15 per cent of the shops and was extended to 50 per cent, that is over 10,000 shops, from October 1.

There were some technical issues—mainly related with connectivity— that had cropped up during the piloting and measures had been taken to plug the gaps.

There are some shadow zones particularly in the Hills and also in the Sunderbans. Double SIM cards have been provided to some ration dealers and some other measures have also been taken to address the connectivity issues.

There are around 20,261 ration shops across the state with the total number of beneficiaries being over

10 crore.

"We have been informed that Chief Minister will be launching Duare Ration project tomorrow (Tuesday). However, there has not been any order as yet from the Food department about how it will be implemented and what will be the commission provided to the ration dealers. The earlier guidelines that had come out were related to the pilot project," Biswambhar Basu, general secretary of All India Fair

Price Shop Dealers' Federation said.