HYDERABAD: Chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s announcement recently that the state government will start issuing new ration cards has resulted in people flooding MeeSeva centres.
Nearly a lakh applications are pending from Hyderabad district alone. In all, over six lakh applications are pending across the state. The state government had frozen the issuance of new ration cards two years ago after the total number of ration cards issued reached 87 lakhs with allegations that a large number of above poverty line families also managed to get ration cards.
Officials of the civil supplies department said that though the CM had announced that new ration cards will be issued soon, they have not received orders in this direction. However, a senior civil supplies department official said new ration cards cannot be issued as the poll code is in force for the graduate MLC elections. If the Election Commission of India also issues notification for bypoll to Nagarjunasagar assembly constituency, applicants might have to wait a little longer to get their new ration cards. Officials did not rule out the possibility of the government starting an exercise to weed out bogus ration cards.