More than 4 crore of fake ration cards canceled during the period 2014 to 2021

As part of the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS), electronic point of sale (ePoS) devices in Fair Price stores (FPS) are operated by FPS resellers. In addition, to ensure the regular delivery of subsidized food grains to disabled and elderly National Food Security Act (NFSA) beneficiaries without any other adult members in the household and who are not able to visit the FPS, all States / TUs are advised to implement mechanisms for the special distribution of food grains to these beneficiaries, either by door-to-door delivery or through their designated persons.

Under the NFSA, among others, operational responsibilities for inclusion and exclusion of households / beneficiaries rest with the respective state governments / TUs. Adding and removing ration cards is an ongoing process, in which States / UTs regularly review their ration card / beneficiary list to identify and eliminate potentially ineligible, duplicate, or spurious ration cards after proper verification. , which may also include the home verification field / gate and to include other truly eligible and excluded households / beneficiaries, which may also include eligible tribal and poor families / individuals, up to their respective NFSA coverage limits. As a result, due to the use of information technology for TPDS reforms, digitization of ration card data, the process of deduplication, permanent migration, deaths, identification of ineligible ration cards / duplicate / fake etc. States / UT have reported the cancellation of approximately 4.28 crore of these fake ration cards during the period 2014 to 2021 so far.

In addition, Aadhaar’s failure to attach ration cards is not a ground for canceling the ration cards. The Department has extended the deadline for States / UTs, pursuant to the notification dated 02/08/2017 (as amended from time to time) issued pursuant to section 7 of the Aadhaar Act of 2016, to complete the sowing of the ration of Aadhaar. until December 31, 2021. Until then, all states / UTs have been informed that no genuine beneficiary / household will be removed from the list of eligible ration cards / beneficiaries and will not be denied their food grain quota. under NFSA only for lack of Aadhaar number or only for not having Aadhaar number, biometric authentication failure due to network / connectivity / link issues or for any other technical reason, etc. .

This information was given by the Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Ms. Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, in a written response to Rajya Sabha today.