by IANS
Raipur : With an eye to next year’s state assembly elections, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh Tuesday asked the state’s district collectors to tone up the public distribution system (PDS).
Presiding over a collectors’ conference here Tuesday, Singh instructed 16 collectors to take measures to strengthen the PDS system in all the 146 blocks to help below-poverty-line families (BPL) get timely food grains at cheaper rates.
The conference was held against the backdrop of large-scale complaints of corruption and irregularities the state government has received in recent months from southern Bastar and northern Surguja regions in PDS and various other development schemes meant for the rural masses.
The meet was crucial as the state’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is heavily relying on the success of PDS and other welfare schemes to fight the assembly polls to be held next year.
Singh also assessed progress of two major schemes- the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme that seeks to provide employment to one member of every rural household for 100 days in a year and the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna which is a flagship programme of the Centre to provide road connectivity to far-flung areas.