4 months ago
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Coimbatore Consumer Cause (CCC) has urged the Tamil Nadu authorities to widen the Pongal acquisition hamper and ₹3,000 currency assistance to sweetener enactment and no-commodity ration paper holders, stating that their exclusion from the strategy is discriminatory.
In a practice to Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, Coimbatore Consumer Cause said the Pongal acquisition strategy announced for 2026 would screen implicit 2.22 crore atom ration paper holders, including families successful Sri Lankan Tamil rehabilitation camps, but exclude a fewer lakh paper holders who had opted for sweetener oregon no-commodity cards.
K. Kathirmathiyon, caput of CCC pointed retired that ration paper categories were chosen by paper holders successful 1997 nether the Universal Public Distribution System and were not linked to income. The choice, it said, was optional, with immoderate citizens opting for sweetener oregon no-commodity cards to debar subsidised commodities and forestall misuse.
The organisation said utilizing the ration paper enactment arsenic an eligibility criterion was unjust, noting that respective affluent individuals, including elder officials, remained eligible for the Pongal acquisition arsenic atom paper holders, portion tiny beverage store owners and petty saccharine stall operators who opted for sweetener cards for applicable reasons were excluded.
It said that erstwhile the authorities had decided to widen the Pongal acquisition to implicit 96% of ration paper holders, including refugees, determination was nary justification for denying the payment to a conception of Tamil Nadu citizens. While opposing hold of benefits to affluent sections, the assemblage said the contiguous criteria were flawed.
It urged the authorities to either widen the Pongal acquisition uniformly to each ration paper holders oregon prescribe wide eligibility norms to guarantee that assistance reaches the needy.
