New Delhi, Mar 24 (IANS): Senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel on Tuesday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to provide free ration to those in need, during the national lockdown.

"In the light of this crisis, I would urge your government to provide free ration to all those in need until the lockdown continues, which will be over and above the provisions of the Food Security Act.

"Until the lockdown, the identification process of beneficiaries may be waived off," he said in a letter to the Prime Minister.

Patel expressed his concern about the poor, daily wage labourers, farmers and the marginalised. "They will be the biggest suffers in our war against this pandemic," he said.

He also sought that the the allocation of PM-Kisan be tripled and the entire outstanding sum be transferred to all the identified beneficiaries in two tranches.

Further, the government may consider providing similar cash transfer to needy and they may be identified from the pool of Jan Dhan account holders, Patel said in his letter.

Patel also asked the Modi government to create a National Corona Fund with three main objectives - help states recover some of the costs of this pandemic; provide relief to small businesses, farmers & daily wage earners; and fund testing kits, vaccine research and other necessary innovation.