Use of ration card portability on the rise in Uttar Pradesh
Lucknow: As the ration card portability projects gains momentum, more and more beneficiaries are using the facility to buy subsidized food grains from any of the public distribution system (PDS) shop across the state and the country and not necessarily from the shop where they are registered
Lucknow: As the ration card portability projects gains momentum, more and more beneficiaries are using the facility to buy subsidized food grains from any of the public distribution system (PDS) shop across the state and the country and not necessarily from the shop where they are registered.
As many as 29,259 beneficiaries having ration cards in UP availed food grains in 18 other states between May 2020 and June 2021 while 5,891 people having their ration cards registered in 12 other states bought their ration from PDS shops in UP, data sourced from the food and civil supplies department showed.
“The largest number UP’s ration cards were used in Haryana where 9996 UP families/migrants bought subsidized food from PDS shops there followed by Maharashtra (4746) and Gujarat (4323,” said commissioner, food and civil supplies, Manish Chauhan. As many as 2505 families using UP’s ration cards bought food grain in Daman and Diu also.
Among other states where migrants from UP availed their ration during the period were Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Chandigarh, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, MP, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Tripura and Uttarakhand.
According to Chauhan,, the highest number of transactions in UP were made by Maharashtra with 3535 people using Maharashtra’s ration cards procured their monthly PDS quota in UP followed by Haryana (803) and Bihar (679).
The intra-district and inter-district transactions were found to be relatively higher. According to the data more than 1.63 crore households with their ration cards registered at a PDS shop in one place bought food grain from a PDS shop at any other place within the same district between August 2019 and June 2021.
Similarly, around 14 lakh families living in one district bought food grain in the other district within UP during the same period.
“Besides, a total of 58,74,734 intra-district and 6,19,012 inter-district transactions were made under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKAY) under which food grain was provided free of cost to ration card holders and others between May 2020 to October, 2020 and from May2021 till June, 2021,” Chauhan said.
Under the ration card portability that is a part of the Central government’s One Nation, One Ration Card project, eligible beneficiaries can access subsidized/free food grain in the state where they are living and not necessarily in their native place where their ration card is registered.
Calling One Nation, One Ration Card, “an important citizen-centric reform, the Supreme Court on June 29 set deadline of July 31 for all states to implement the scheme.
The Centre told the Supreme Court that four states—Assam, Chhatisgarh, Delhi and West Bengal—were yet to implement the One Nation, One Ration Card scheme.
