If things go as planned, then 2015 could start on a good note for beneficiaries in Hyderabad who are likely to receive their Food Security Cards (FSC) by first or second week of January. The Chief Rationing Officer (CRO), Hyderabad district, has already started the enquiry work to scrutinise FSC applications it had received.
In all, the Hyderabad CRO office has received 9.44 lakh FSC applications and as of now, data entry of applicants into the Electronic Public Distribution System (E-PDS) system is underway, apart from the enquiry process being carried out by field staff.
“We have completed about 50 per cent of the ground work, but there is still a lot of work is left to be done. Our officers are working over-time to finish the work so that the cards can be activated by January,” a senior official said.
Similar to the verification done during the validation of ration cards earlier, field officers are cross-checking Aadhar card data of applicants to ensure that bogus or double applications are weeded out. “We are asking for at least Enrolment Identification (EID) numbers. In case people do not have that, verification officer has to satisfy other criteria to make sure that the applicant exists,” officials explained.
CRO officials said that verification work for FSC was delayed as the instructions or guidelines from the Telangana State government came a few weeks ago. “Also, we have just 150 people to complete the work. So we are doing our best to finish things in the targeted time,” officials said, adding that all the details of applicants will be available online once data is uploaded on the E-PDS website.
“Whatever information is being fed into the E-PDS, will be available for public to check. Beneficiaries are requested not to give any money to middlemen or our field officers for approval of their cards,” officials clarified.
