The Delhi Government’s Food and Civil Supplies Department has decided to deactivate around 1.65 lakh ration cards which have been found to be bogus. Disbursement of ration (subsidised food grains) was stopped to around 1.7 lakh card holders across the city from April this year suspecting that these cards might be bogus.
After giving two months time to the card holders to prove their authenticity, the department has decided to deactivate these cards from the records.
“Apart from notices displayed at the fair price shops concerned, advertisements were also given in newspapers requesting these card holders to come up with records and get their cards released. Barring a few thousand people, there has been no response from the other card holders. So we have decided to deactivate these cards considering them bogus. A notice with card details would be issued within a week,” said S.S. Yadav, Secretary, Food, Supplies & Consumer Affairs.
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Entitlements to these card holders was stopped since April and the department is said to have saved around Rs.6.5 crore by checking pilferage of food grains to these fake card holders. “On an average, the department saved around 50,000 quintal of food grains (38,000 quintal wheat and 12,000 quintal rice) every month since April,” an official said.
Around 6.32 households are currently being covered under the Food Security Act in the city through Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) Card, Below Poverty Line (BPL) Card, Jhuggi Ration Card (JRC), Resettlement Colony Ration Card (RCRC) and APL (Above Poverty Line) stamped cards.
Officials said the department suspects it can weed out more bogus ration cards and it would be launching another exercise to scrutinise cards under the APL stamped category. Card holders under this category get subsidised food grains, though at rates higher than those under the FSA.
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“We suspect the number of bogus cards is likely to be much higher under the APL stamped category. The scrutiny process will begin soon,” an official said.