New Delhi/UNI: The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Wednesday termed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement of extending the free foodgrain scheme till November-end as "yet another jumla".
He said Modi had not made any new announcement, but was an extension of his earlier announcement.
Yechury, reacting sharply to Modi's address to the nation Tuesday, said in the 2019 election itself, the PM had announced that 14 crore farmers would be given Rs 2,000 in three installments.
"Yesterday's announcement is the second part of the same old announcement. Mr Modi announced yesterday that Rs 18,000 crore was given to nine crore farmers, but what will happen to the remaining five crore farmers? In this way, Mr Modi's speech proves to be more of a jumla."
He said under the Food Security Act, 43 lakh tonnes of foodgrains was allocated every month and if five kg of rice or wheat will be given extra, then the allocation for it will be doubled. But it was not done and in April and May, the allocation of foodgrains was only 26 lakh tonnes and 29 lakh tonnes respectively.
He further said 14 crore people have lost their jobs as a result of the Coronavirus outbreak and eight crore people have been forced to walk home on the roads for the past two months, but Modi has not said a word about them in his address.
The CPI-M General Secretary also said that by just giving five kg of wheat or rice "does not fulfill the needs of the poor, so we demand that 10 kg of foodgrains be given free to them for six months and Rs 7,500 deposited every month for six months directly in their bank account."
Yechury maintained that had the Prime Minister created a private care fund for Covid-19, he would have got a lot of relief if he had helped the poor with the money deposited in it but he did not do so.
"This proves once more that what he said, as usual, was a 'jumla' this time and nothing else," he added.
Image Credit: IBNS File
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