Ration Card Holders will now not receive free wheat, gram, and rice as the government will stop distributing food to people who have added wrong information to their ration cards.
Currently, the government is planning to cancel about 10 lakh such ration cards that the department has identified from all over the country. The review process is ongoing as of now so the number is likely to increase in the days to come.
More than 80 crore Indian citizens are currently enjoying the benefits of being a Ration Card holder, out of which over one crore beneficiaries are said to be not eligible for the scheme.
10 lakh beneficiaries identified by the government till now will not be receiving the free wheat, gram, and rice. The govt has given directives to send a list of ineligible ration card holders to the local ration dealers who will be marking the names of fraud beneficiaries and send the report of such cardholders to the district headquarters. After reviewing the information, the department will cancel the Ration cards of such beneficiaries.
According to NFSA, those who pay income tax will be removed from the ration card ownership. Apart from that, people with more than 10 bighas of land will not get the benefit of ration card.
The government has also identified a few people who have been running illegal businesses by selling free rations. Action will be taken against them too. Sources reported that the maximum number of Ration card misuse is done in Uttar Pradesh.
Meanwhile in Kerala, despite recent hikes in the price of food and other necessities, the government has failed to distribute 13,000 tons of rice that the Union Government had allocated for free distribution to those with ration cards who were in need. Under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Ann Yojana, priority yellow and pink ration card holders would receive five kilograms of rice free of charge each month.
However, a shortage of about 5,000 tons in September and more than 8,000 tons in October was discovered. The Food and Civil Supplies Department's headcount revealed this gap. The 27 lakh cardholders could have received enough rice if it had been distributed in this quantity.
With 1.54 crore members, Kerala has 41 lakh cards in the yellow and pink categories. Due to a delay in transporting the rice from the NFSA godowns under the Department to the ration shops in September and October, many cardholders did not get their entire allotment of rice. As a result, the cardholders received the rice that was in stock at the stores.
The cardholders expected to receive the remaining portion in October, but the State Food and Civil Supplies Department opted to only distribute the earlier portion to individuals who had not previously received any rice.
