About 4.28 Crore Bogus Ration Cards Cancelled During 2014-21: Govt Tells Parliament

The government on Friday (10 December) said that about 4.28 crore bogus ration cards have been cancelled in the last seven years due to the use of information technology for Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) reforms.

In a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha, Union Minister of State for Food and Public Distribution Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti said that the operational responsibilities of inclusion and exclusion of households or beneficiaries rests with the respective State and UT governments.

"The addition and deletion of ration cards is a continuous process, wherein the States and UTs regularly review their list of ration cards beneficiaries to identify and weed out potentially ineligible, duplicate or bogus ration cards after proper verification, which may also include field or door to door verification and to include other genuinely eligible and left out households and beneficiaries, which may also include eligible tribal and poor families or persons, up to their respective limits of NFSA coverage," the minister said.

"Accordingly, due to use of information technology for TPDS reforms, digitization of ration cards data, de-duplication process, permanent migration, deaths, identification of ineligible, duplicate and fake ration cards, etc. the States, UTs have reported the cancellation of about 4.28 crore such bogus ration cards during the period 2014 to 2021 so far," she added.

The minister further informed that non-linking of Aadhaar with ration cards is not a ground for the cancellation of ration cards, according to Food and Public Distribution Ministry release.

Th Department has extended the timeline given to the States and UTs for completing the Aadhaar seeding of ration cards up to 31 December 2021, she said.

"Until then, all States/UTs have been advised that no genuine beneficiary or household shall be deleted from the list of eligible ration cards or beneficiaries and shall not be denied their entitled quota of foodgrains under NFSA only for want of Aadhaar number or only on the ground of not possessing an Aadhaar number, failure of biometric authentication due to network, connectivity or linking issues or any other technical reasons etc," the minister said.

She further said that under the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS), the electronic Point of Sale (ePoS) devices at the Fair Price Shops (FPSs) are operated by the FPS dealers.

Further, to ensure regular delivery of subsidised foodgrains to the differently abled and old-age National Food Security Act (NFSA) beneficiaries, with no other adult member in the household and who are not in position to visit the FPSs, all States and UTs have been advised to implement mechanisms for special dispensation of foodgrains to such beneficiaries, either through home-delivery or through their nominated persons, the minister informed.