Puducherry:
The UPA government was working on a bill on Right to Food in keeping with the plan of Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, who were keen to ameliorate the lot of the poor and the have-nots, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram said today.
The government's aim was that none should face pangs of hunger and the proposed bill was yet another revolutionary measure after the Right To Work and Right to Information Acts,
he told a public meeting near here, virtually launching ruling Congress' campaign for the assembly polls due in May.
The meeting was organized by the DPPC to highlight the achievements of the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre and in the Union Territory.
The food bill was keeping the next generation in mind and was not aimed at the next elections, he said. "The welfare of the next generation is governing the underlying spirit of the
Right to Food legislation," he said.
The Centre was implementing the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme at an investment of Rs 40,000 crores annually, he said, adding this was a "revolutionary measure" evolved by Sonia Gandhi to ensure that there was guaranteed job for the rural folk.
He also said, as on March 31 last year, as many as 20 lakh students were provided educational loans to the tune of Rs 36,000 crores across the country.
Chidambaram, a former Union finance minister, said the country was headed towards re-achieving nine per cent economic growth rate shortly.
He urged party workers to work relentlessly to retain the faith that the people reposed in Congress.
In a veiled dig at former chief minister N Rangasamy, who had quit the Congress and the MLA post recently, he said if one left Congress, "one would only stand deprived of identity
and reckoning".
Former Puducherry Health Minister V Pethaperumal, who was the President of Janata Dal, joined Congress in the presence of Chidambaram at the public meeting.