Chennai, Dec 21 (BPNS)
The Tamil Nadu government has decided to provide fortified rice to all districts of the state from April 1, 2023. This is following the directive of the central government.
A pilot run of supplying fortified rice was conducted in the Tiruchy district in October 2020 and fortified rice was supplied in a ratio of 75:25 and funded by the Central government.
It is to be noted that 3.64 people including Antyodaya Anna Yojna( AAY) and Priority Household( PHH) card holders comes under the National Food Security Act (NFSA). The Government of India is supplying 2.91 tonnes of rice every month to the beneficiaries.
The Government of India, it may be recalled, has included staple food fortification to reduce the instances of anemia and undernutrition among the poorest of poor people in society. This comes under the National Nutrition Mission or Poshan Abhiyan scheme.
The state government will be providing training to rice mill owners and grinding agents registered with the Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation (TNCSC).
Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation officials told BPNS that every AAY card holder was eligible for 5 kg of rice and the total allocation would be provided fortified rice only.
As far as the fortification process of rice is concerned, broken rice is first grinded into powder and artificial nutrients are added to this. Then these are shaped into rice-like kernels by extrusion at rice mills.
The fortified rice is then mixed with normal rice in a ratio of 1:100 kg.
The fortified rice will be provided to Non-Priority Householders (NPHH) but to start with only 30% of the NP Householders will be covered under this scheme.
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