Jharkhand govt deletes over 67,000 cards in five months

In a drive to delete duplicate ration cards, Jharkhand Food and Civil Supplies Department has deleted 67,780 cards between July to December in the state. Jharkhand government said that there are around 2.62 crore ration card holders in the state, out of which 3.16 lakh existed till July this year.

“From July to December last year, duplicate ration cards decreased from 3.16 lakh ration card holders to 2.62 lakh after verification,” stated the data obtained from the department.

The move assumes significance as under National Food Security Act, 29.89 lakh beneficiaries have not been given ration card yet who had applied for it in the last five years. The reason for pending applications cited by the government is that the quota of cards in rural area–around 86%–and urban area–around 60%–have been exhausted.

Jharkhand govt has started its own scheme called jharkhand state food security scheme under which it will hive subsidized rice–5kg /person– at Re 1/kg to 15 lakh beneficiaries from the above 28.89 lakh distributing green ration cards.

Right to Food Campaign member Ashrafi Nand Prasad, however, said that the government should show caution while deleting the ration cards. He added: “In Raghubar Das’ regime around 13 lakh ration cards were deleted which were not Aadhaar seeded, or were duplicates, dormant among other reasons. But many were genuine beneficiaries whose ration cards were deleted. The government should make all deleted ration cards public.”

He added that green ration cards have been distributed to a few residents in the state.

In the same period, the department also found out 89, 922 dormant ration cards and cancelled 85,152 of those. In the same period Aadhaar seeding has been done of 11.17 lakh ration card holders and the department has converted 951 Public Distribution Shops to online more I.e the delivery of grains will happened through Electronic-Point of Sale machines.