CM Sonowal directs Chief Secretary to distribute food to Assam's poor

Guwahati: Assam Chief Minister has urged the Chief Secretary, Kumar Sanjay Krishna to provide food to the poorer sections of the society -- worst hit due to the coronavirus-triggered lockdown.

"Taking note of problems faced by the weaker sections due to lockdown, CM Shri Sarbananda Sonowal has directed Chief Secretary to provide food to the destitute, daily wage earners and poorer sections of the society", a tweet sent out from Sonowal's official twitter handle read.

Although this seems to be a commendable decision taken in the nick of time, Sonowal's declaration posits some rather interesting questions that must soon be resolved. For instance, who will make the list of needy people? Also, with there being allegations of inclusion of names of "fake beneficiaries" in every government scheme, how will the names be verified? The success of Sonowal's planned scheme will depend to a large extent on how it is implemented on the ground level, which will be the biggest challenge of them all.

Sonowal's directive has come amid hue-and-cry over the rising prices of vegetables and other commodities in the state. In Guwahati, especially, there have been numerous reports of unscrupulous businessmen pocketing profits from helpless citizens who have been urged to stock up by the Government. At the same time, the source of income of migrant labourers and other classes of daily wage labourers has completely died down. In other states, it prompted the great migrant exodus in which lakhs of Indians stranded amid the lockdown either walked back on foot or took trucks back to their hometowns amid the COVID-19 crisis.

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