A consultation meeting was conducted yesterday (Monday, 19th December) regarding supplying `ENRICHED RICE` to the ration card holders in the public distribution system (PDS) with the agents of the Tamil Nadu Consumers Trading Corporation at Kalaivanar Arangam, Chennai Metro City. The meeting was presided over by the State Minister of the Tamil Nadu Government for Food and the Department of Distribution of groceries, Chakrapani.

After the meeting, the Minister for Food and Public Distribution System shared with the press reporters:

“Following the announcement from the Central Government and the Order released by the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, ENRICHED RICE WOULD BE DISTRIBUTED TO THE CITIZENS BY THE FAIR PRICE SHOPS FROM 1ST APRIL!

THIS ENRICHED RICE CONTAINS IRON, FOLIC ACID, AND OTHER NUTRIENTS. FOR EACH 100 KG OF NORMAL RICE, 1 KG OF ENRICHED RICE WILL BE MIXED!”

Mainly to avoid severe congestion of devotees at Sabarimalai Lord Sri Ayyappan temple, a decision has been taken by the Dewaswom Board to cancel the `On-the-spot` reservation facility for Darshan!

It has been decided to limit the number of devotees per day to 90000 for Darshan who can book in advance for the same.

 Further, separate queues were formed for women above 50 years, children, and senior citizens.

Meanwhile, on a single day, yesterday (19th December, Monday), 1.04 Lakhs citizens had booked for Darshan! This led to quite an acute congestion of devotees` crowd!

In this regard, a Dewaswom Board Official shared, “Presently, only 90000 devotees are allowed to have Darshan each day based on the booking for the same! However, yesterday (Monday, 19th December) before this restriction, 1.04 Lakh devotees had Darshan of Lord Sri Ayyappan as all of them had booked for Darshan in advance! Following this unmanageable devotees` crowd level, THE SPOT BOOKING FOR DARSHAN HAS BEEN CANCELLED!”

It is very important that the schools must have basic facilities like toilets etc for the students.

In the state of TN, about 70percent of the total 58801 govt, govt aided, private-unaided and several other schools lack the basic toilet facility for the students with special needs. Information is that 26percent of the schools in TN do not have ramps and 59percent schools lack handrails for these school kids with special needs to walk without issues.

For education and to record date on indicators of school education provided by all states and UT etc, the junior ministry of education has developed Unified District Information System

It was mentioned by Mr. Dharmendra Pradhan, Union minister of education that the education was in the concurrent list of the constitution and majority of the schools were in the functional domain of the state or UT govt. It must be taken into account that Samagra Skihsha, state-central govt programme, has provisions for ramps, handrails and differently able persons friendly toilets for barrier free access. The minister threw light on the amount that was allotted for Samagra Shiksha was Rs 118 crore in the last fiscal and Rs 64 cr in 2022.

Point to be noted is that 15lakhs children with special needs have enrolled for the academic year in the state of TN and this included 1.1 lakh students in the elementary classes. Differently able persons rights activist Mr. S. Namburajan mentioned that the issue was serious and accessibility was much more than the ramps. He wanted the government to have proper planning and discussion.

The cost of gold has decreased by Rs. 40 per sovereign on Tuesday Morning (December 20, 2022). The cost of the gold rate has decreased by Rs. 5 per gram.

The gold rate has decreased and one sovereign is worth Rs. 40520.00 and a gram is Rs. 5065.00.

The cost of 1 gram of pure gold (24 K) is now Rs. 5467.00.

A kilo of silver is priced at Rs. 72500.00 and a gram is worth Rs. 72.50.