With blocking of non-linked ration cards, people rush to link Aadhaar

“90,000 ration cards blocked; list of cards displayed in fair price shops”

Following the State-level action to block all ration cards that had not been linked with Aadhaar and mobile phone numbers of family heads, officials said that public had been rushing to link their Aadhaar cards now.

All the non-linked cards were put in ‘blocked’ status and distribution of provisions was stopped from this month by Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection Department (CSCPD). According to R. Jeeva, District Supply Officer, more than 90,000 ration cards, which is roughly ten per cent of the total number of cards in the district, have been blocked and the list of these cards is displayed in the respective fair price shops.

As people were unable to get provisions, she said that there had been a rush in the past couple of weeks to link their Aadhaar cards. She said that more than 10,000 of the blocked cards had already been unblocked after the linking of Aadhaar. “We hope the remaining cards will also be linked in the next few weeks,” she said.

Officials at the District Supply Office said that a considerable number of these non-linked cards could also be bogus or the respective families could have shifted elsewhere.

Though officials said that linking of Aadhaar and unblocking of ration cards could be done at the respective shops, a section of people, however, complained that they had been asked to visit the taluk office or District Supply Office to get it done.

S. Shanmuganathan, a resident of DRO Colony, said that the salesman of his shop refused to do it claiming that unblocking of the ration card required updates to be done through computers and not the point of sale (POS) devices available in shops.

Acknowledging that there could be difficulties at the shop, an official from the District Supply Office said that sales personnel had been asked to link Aadhaar through POS and get a form filled for unblocking the card, which the personnel could submit later in bulk at the taluk offices.

Meanwhile, the door-to-door verification to identify priority households for the implementation of Food Security Act has begun in the district. Ms. Jeeva said that the personnel involved in this work had also been asked to collect Aadhaar details from non-linked card holders.