Telangana has achieved yet another milestone going by the Civil Supplies department’s claims.

The State’s model of portability of ration cards enabling people to get the commodities supplied through the Public Distribution System from anywhere across the State through the same ration card has become an inspiration for the country. The project has become a key component of the Central government’s proposal for introducing “one-nation-one-card” project to be implemented across the country from June next year, the department said.

The Centre decided to implement the one-nation-one-card project on a pilot basis in two clusters comprising Telangana and Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra and Gujarat from August 1.

Accordingly, PDS consumers in Telangana could get the commodities from any shop in AP using the card issued to them by the Civil Supplies department and vice versa. The same will be the case with consumers in Maharashtra and Gujarat which is identified as second cluster for implementation of the pilot project.

On Friday, the Telangana Civil Supplies Corporation conducted a trial run of the project with consumers from the neighbouring State drawing their commodities from the fair price shop located in Punjagutta. According to officials, 2.82 crore consumers had benefited with the ration portability introduced in the State on April 1, 2018. Ration from anywhere gained traction and about 2.07 crore transactions relating to ration from anywhere had been registered so far.

Hyderabad recorded the highest number of 42 lakh transactions owing to the huge number of migrant people who live here for their employment followed by Medchal (29 lakh), Ranga Reddy (18 lakh), Nizamabad (10 lakh) and Warangal (9 lakh). Enthused by the success of the project, the Centre decided to implement it on a pilot basis in two clusters and communicated the eligibility criterion relating to the beneficiaries under the national portability.

Accordingly, beneficiaries under the NFSA (National Food Security Act) would be eligible for the scheme and the Aadhaar number of at least one beneficiary should be seeded to his/her ration card. The ration card thus seeded should be tagged to the FPS in their home State — either Telangana or Andhra Pradesh. The beneficiaries living in the two States could draw their ration from any FPS located in either of the States.

More than 56 lakh beneficiaries covered under the NFSA in Telangana would stand to benefit with the facility. Foodgrains would be issued on the same scale and Central issue prices under the NFSA as part of the scheme. Accordingly, each beneficiary would get 5 kg rice at ₹3 a kg and wheat at ₹2 a kg. The government had constituted the State Apex Committee under the chairmanship of the Chief Secretary and the State Project e-Mission Team had been constituted under the chairmanship of the Civil Supplies Commissioner to monitor the implementation of the project.