BPL salt does a double take

It’s a move that will unwittingly rub salt on the wounds of around 36 lakh families in Jharkhand living below poverty line.

With the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently withdrawing 25 paise coins from circulation, the state government has been forced to shed its friendly face and revise its decision to sell salt at 25 paise per kg to BPL families, commonly known as the lal-card holders.

The Arjun Munda cabinet, forced to acknowledge that 25 paise coins had gone the way of the dodo and the dinosaur, yesterday decided to double the rate of salt to 50 paise per kg. “Now that 25 paise coins have been withdrawn, we have decided to sell salt at 50 paise per kg to BPL families,” public distribution minister Mathura Prasad Mahto said today.

This decision comes just a month after the cabinet had approved to sell salt at 25 paise per kg.

But the decision came a tad late, as the RBI had last month announced that 25 paise coins were numismatically persona non grata.

But while the forced inflation may induce some bland rage, the minister also threw in some verbal balm. He said the state had urged the Centre to include 11.44 lakh more BPL families in the main list so that they get lal card benefits.