‘Exercise to weed out bogus cards is fraught with inadequacies’
White ration cardholders are up in the arms against the exercise to weed out bogus cards.
R. Raghava, a resident of Santhi Nagar, said her card was declared bogus when her family was out of station. “When I went to the fair price shop to buy rice, the dealer told me that the ration card is no longer valid, ” she said. I was aghast to know that my ration card was a bogus one, she added.
“We all went to our village to attend the last rites of my aunt. We don’t know when and who conducted the unquiry,” she said.
‘No transparency’
Expressing similar views, Vakati Ramana, a resident of the One Town area, said there was no transparency in weeding out bogus cards. Genuine persons were being put to hardship. The dealers were acting as per their whims and fancies, she alleged.
B. Anjemma, another resident, said: “The dealer has declared my card as bogus as I did not make any purchase last month. How can he arrive at such a conclusion?” Ms. Anjamma questioned and expressed the view that aged people like her would be ineligible for Arogyasri if the biased and unscientific method continued.
Stir threat
The city unit of CPI(M) has alleged that the poor are being deprived of essential commodities under the garb of weeding out bogus cards.
“The government is withdrawing white ration cards from the genuine and needy people,” CPI(M) city secretary Ch. Babu Rao said. More than 12,000 were declared bogus cards in the city.
The government adopted a wrong method to weed out bogus cards. Fair price shop dealers were being offered incentives if they helped in getting rid of bogus cards, he said and adding that the CPI(M) would launch an agitation if the withdrawn cards were not restored.
He urged the government to device a scientific approach to remove bogus cards.
Keywords: Ration cards, bogus cards
