Muzaffarpur May 26: Union minister of consumer affairs, food and public distribution Ram Vilas Paswan today said strengthening of food security and protection of interest of common man as consumer has been accorded high priority by the NDA government in its one year in office.

Paswan expressed happiness over successful completion of one year at a function organised here. He added that the consumer courts in the country would shortly be made effective and stronger in view of online trade flourishing in the country. He had called a meeting with the judges of consumer courts on May 29 in New Delhi to explore possibilities for toughing it up for strict surveillances on the business houses allegedly duping the consumers.

Enumerating a plethora of initiatives, he said, during the past year, the central government had taken to make foodgrain management more efficient and promote welfare of farmers. Measures have been taken for quality assurance of consumer goods and services in the country to give fillip make in India.

The Centre decided to reimburse amount of value cut on minimum support price (MSP) if any imposed to the states so that farmers get full MSP even for shrivelled and broken wheat grains or having lustre loss. An action plan is being finalised by the FCI to provide better price support services to farmers in eastern states, especially in eastern Uttar Pardesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Bengal and Assam where procurement system has poor outreach to the farmers.

Seat meeting

A crucial meeting of NDA leaders was held at the Patna residence of Union food minister Ram Vilas Paswan late on Tuesday night to discuss the issues related to seat-sharing for the upcoming Legislative Council elections and the year-end Assembly polls. The meeting was attended by BJP state president by Mangal Pandey, former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, Leader of Opposition in Assembly Nand Kishore Yadav and RLSP chief Upendra Kushwaha.