PDS beneficiaries refuse to ‘give it up’ even after a year

Coimbatore: In an attempt to curb syphoning of essential commodities at fair price shops, the Tamil Nadu Public Distribution System (TNPDS) had in 2018 urged smart card holders to opt for ‘give it up’ option, if they were not purchasing the items from Fair Price Shops (FPS). But no consumer has come forward to do it.
The main reason for requesting public to utilize the option was to help the state government save a large quantity of essential commodities, a senior TNPDS official said. “Also, we were expecting to reduce illegal procuring and smuggling of commodities to a large extent. Card holders, who were not planning to purchase the commodities for a period of time, can use the option by either blocking their card permanently or for a period of time. All the card holders need to do is log into the TNPDS application and click on the block option. It can be unblocked any time,” the official told TOI.
It is distressing to see that not even a single consumer has come forward to do so, the official said. “Over 35,000 card holders had not purchased any products from ration shops in July. But the department could not force anyone to utilize the option.”
A couple of years ago, when ration cards and manual process were in practice, the officials could block cards, which were not used to purchase commodities for three months at a stretch.
After the introduction of the smart card, the department withdrew the blocking option and replaced it with ‘give it up’.
There are 10.08lakh card holders in Coimbatore, including 8.50lakh rice card holders and 75,797 sugar card holders, who, according to sources, could opt for the ‘give it up’ option.
R Sumathi, a sugar card holder, said she was not aware of the option. “I don’t want to give it up. For the family of four, we get 5kg sugar, which is of good quality. But some of my relatives, who are rice card holders, get hardly a kilogram of sugar. They cannot afford to purchase it from shops. I give excess sugar to them.”