Massive Drive in State to Weed out Bogus Ration Cards

From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Bangalore

Bangalore, Jan 21: The state government has launched a major drive to eliminate bogus ration cards in cities and towns and to prevent misuse of subsidised domestic LPG supplies.

All the Above Poverty Line (APL) ration card holders have been asked by the Food and Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Department to submit a copy of the ration card and the Revenue Register (RR) number of the electricity meters of their homes to their LPG distributors within 10 days and the deadline ends on January 29.

The APL cards of the holders, who failed to furnish the information would be liable for cancellation of their cards and the LPG distributors would be asked to stop LPG supplies, the officers maintained.

In order to identify ineligible ration cards in towns and cities, the RR numbers of the electricity meters of the houses of ration card holders, who collect ration from the fair price shops, have already been collected.

But the electricity meter numbers of the APL ration card holders have not been collected, officials said, pointing out that the exercise being carried out in urban areas of the State by the department to eliminate bogus ration cards and to identify the misuse of LPG connections, the officials said.

The department has collected details of 1.51 crore families and issued ration cards to 1.24 crore families, including BPL families, in the State.

It has issued biometric bar-coded ration cards to 74 lakh households.

Nearly 20,000 ration shops in the State have been entrusted with the responsibility of distributing foodgrains. Mounting food subsidy (around Rs. 800 crore a year) was another factor that forced the department to launch the drive to crackdown bogus ration cards.

The state has been making efforts to identify fake cards so that only eligible families get the ration supplied under the public distribution system.