Door delivery of rations to aged, disabled begins

THE Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Department on Wednesday commenced the pilot project for home-delivery of essential commodities —rice, sugar, wheat, palmolein oil, and toor dal—under the Public Distribution System (PDS) for senior citizens and persons with disabilities (PwDs) in Chennai and nine other districts.

- B ANBUSELVAN @Chennai

A minimum of 10 fair price shops across two taluks in each district have been selected for the pilot study of this initiative.

Apart from Chennai, the other nine districts included in the first phase of the project are Tirunelveli, Sivaganga, Dindigul, Ranipet, Erode, Dharmapuri, Nagapattinam, the Nilgiris, and Cuddalore. On June 17, TNIE was the first to report on the government's decision to roll out the project across the state.

According to official sources from the cooperation and food department, the door-to-door delivery project aims to cover cardholding families where the members are either below 18 years of age or 70 years and above. Cardholding families where all the members fall in the disabled category will also be covered under the scheme, sources said.

As part of the initiative, 10 ration shops in the southern zone of Chennai have been selected to serve around 650 ration cardholders.