The Department of Social Welfare and Development is eyeing an additional 120 Tindahan Natin outlets in Negros Occidental in 2008, a government press release said.

DSWD head Fernando Alabado said their agency screens applicants and  they usually grant the project to unemployed and poor beneficiaries to help them augment their income and make affordable rice available in their area.

In 2007, there were only 325 TN outlets in the province. The opening of 120 outlets this year will bring the number to 445.

Under the TN program, operators receive a total of P20,000 worth of rice from the National Food Authority to be sold at the mandated price of P18.25 a kilo.

TN operators cannot sell NFA rice beyond the prescribed price, Alabado said.

The TN project has erased the long-held perception that NFA rice is inferior to commercial rice, he added.

Records show that as of January 2008, repayment rate is at 54.54 percent but the figure is expected to reach 100 percent by June.  

Alabado said the good repayment rate indicates that TN has given many families the opportunity to earn while making quality and affordable rice available in their communities, the press release said.*

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