Aadhaar seeding weeded out 8.5 lakh bogus ration cards in Karnataka, says U T Khader

BENGALURU: Following Aadhaar seeding of ration cards in Karnataka, around 8.5 lakh bogus ration cards have been cancelled.

Due to the prevalence of such cards, each Fair Price Shop (FPS) used to have 60-70 extra cards, which have been removed from the system, said food, civil supplies and consumer affairs minister U T Khader, here on Wednesday.

Installation of biometric Point of Sale (PoS) machines, which also ensures that food reaches the beneficiaries, is complete in 80 per cent of the FPS shops in the state, he said. As per department data, PoS has been installed in 16,832 of the 20,335 shops in the state.

In the remainder of the shops, PoS machines will be installed under Common Service Centres (CSC) Scheme, an initiative of the Central government. Under CSC, a private agency will be allowed to install biometric PoS devices and provide broadband connectivity to the devices. "One of the major complaints we had while installing these biometric devices is lack of internet connectivity. Under the scheme, these issues will be sorted and all FPS shops will have internet connected PoS devices within a year or year-and-a-half," Khader said.

With this, all FPS will be upgraded to 'Seva Sindhu Kendras', which can then be used by locals to book online tickets or for other online purposes, he said. One of the reasons for the delay in installing PoS machines at all FPS shops was since the license holders of these FPS were reluctant to install the same.

Ration card

Under the second phase of ration card verification and distribution, 15.26 lakh of the 15.45 lakh applications have been cleared. Of the number, 11.71 lakh cards have been delivered to the residence of the beneficiaries, while the remaining is in various stages of clearance. About 26,000 applications were rejected for various reasons, he said.

In terms of Aadhaar seeding of ration cards, 100 per cent family seeding and 97 per cent individual seeding for the cards is complete, he added.

Anila Bhagya applications from Jan 16

Applications for Anila Bhagya scheme will be available to beneficiaries from January 16 and 1.5 lakh will be eligible under the first phase of the scheme, said Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Minister U T Khader.

After the application, an alert on whether the family has been selected will be issued, following which they have to complete formalities to receive the connection from the local gram panchayat office. This process will be completed in a week, he said.

Noting that there were many beneficiaries applying under Anila Bhagya compared to the 1.5 lakh cylinders provided for the scheme by Ministry of Petroleum, Oil and Natural Gas, he said that all the beneficiaries will be covered in phases.

"The 1.5 lakh cylinder and gas stove connections will be distributed among 224 constituencies. Local MLAs will then distribute them in their constituencies," he added.