Minister for Food and Civil Supplies Shobha Karandlaje on Thursday said that 29 lakh new online ration card applicants under both ‘above poverty line (APL)' and ‘below poverty line (BPL)' categories will get their cards in about five months.
Speaking to mediapersons, she said the thumb impression of the families were being collected and their information verified before the commencement of issue of new cards.
She said that a new computer, to ensure proper entitlement of foodgrains to a card holder, will be installed at 1,000 fair price shops (FPSs) in five months and later to the remaining 23,000 fair price shops across the State. The machine will announce the quantum of foodgrains weighed before being delivered to the card holder. The amount will also be displayed on the computer. All such information will be simultaneously passed on to the Food Department.
There are 1.25 crore families in the State as per the 2011 Census, but only 1.68 card holding families are on record. If the 29 lakh new online applicants are taken into consideration, the total beneficiaries would add up to around 1.97 crore families.
Ms. Karandlaje said that as per the new Census records, nearly 70 lakh cards are unauthorised. There are also fake BPL and APL cards in circulation.
She said that entire country was looking at Karnataka's reforms and Odisha Minister for Food and Civil Supplies Niranjan Pujari had visited the State to study it. The West Bengal government had written a letter seeking information on the issue.
Foodgrains transportation
Continuing her drive, she said that transportation of foodgrains from Food Corporation of India to the State government godowns and from there to the FPSs had been cancelled and had been entrusted to societies such as Stree Shaktri groups.
