The Andhra Pradesh government had sought 1 lakh tons of red gram from the Central government to be given to the poor in the state. Minister for Civil Supplies, Nadendla Manohar, told media persons on Thursday that the state government had sent a request to the Central government to release the red gram on emergency quota. The Minister met Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Prahlad Joshi in Delhi on the day.

The Minister said that he had given a representation to the Union Minister seeking support to the state. Injustice was done to the state at the time of bifurcation in 2014, the Minister said. He said that the Centre had taken the 2001 census in 2014 to fix the number of ration cards. The Centre did not take the population of the state into consideration, he said.

The ration cards were fixed as per the National Food Security Act, the Minister said. He said that the state government had represented the issue to increase the ration cards several times in the past. The centre did not change its stand on the number of ration cards, he said. The Minister further said that he had given a representation to increase the ration cards in the state. The Minister was positive about the demand, he said.

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Manohar said that the state government was giving provisions to 1.47 crore families in the state every month. The number has to go up as per the population of the state, he said. The distribution of ration is being streamlined in the state, he said. The black marketing was stopped after the NDA formed the government, he said.

There was huge black marketing of rice in the state during the last five years of the YSR Congress government, the minister said. Most of the rice was exported from Kakinada port, he said. This was noticed by the NDA government and had stopped, he said. Vigilance was activated in the state to keep an eye on the PDS distribution, the Minister said.

The Minister further said that he had requested the Central minister to support the state government in the construction of godowns across the state. He said that there was a need to increase the storage capacity in the state. He also requested the Central minister to release pending funds to the state under the civil supplies department.