Pongal gifts worth lakhs gutted in fire at Madurai Collector’s Office

Many of the items were stored to be supplied to ration shops as part of the Pongal gift package distribution program. Under Chief Minister MK Stalin, the Tamil Nadu government is providing Pongal gift hampers to individuals holding ration cards. The gift hampers would include one kilogram of rice, a kilo of sugar, and Rs 1,000. Those individuals who are residing in Sri Lankan rehabilitation camps would also give other festive gifts like sarees, clothes and accessories as part of the gifting program. The gift hampers would be distributed through Public Distribution Shops (PDS) to nearly 2.9 crore ration card holders in the state.

The distribution of tokens for collecting gift hampers was launched on January 4. Ration card holders who have collected their tokens can exchange the same for the Pongal gift hamper anytime until January 12. The token distribution continued till January 8.

Pongal is an important harvest festival celebrated by Tamil Hindus in the states like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Puducherry, as well as by the wider Tamil diaspora. As part of the celebrations, sharing gifts is an important tradition along with cooking the Pongal dishes of chakarai pongal and venn pongal.