Even as a large number of people were running from pillar to post to link Aadhaar and ‘unblock’ their ration cards that were earlier blocked for non-linking of Aadhaar, the State government has temporarily stopped this process without any announcements to facilitate issuance of smart cards from April 1.
An official from Madurai north taluk said that access to the Tamil Nadu Public Distribution System (TNPDS) server, through which all the necessary updates would be done by the officials, had been suddenly stopped since Monday afternoon.
“We cannot even pull details of a particular ration card from the database now since the access is completely stopped across Tamil Nadu,” the official said.
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Consequently, a large number of people visiting the Taluk offices and the District Supply Office since Monday afternoon had to return disappointed.
A senior official from the district administration said that the move was to facilitate the printing of smart cards, which will be issued as replacement for the ration cards. “The ration cards presently in possession of public expires by March 31. Hence, issuance of smart cards cannot be delayed further,” the official said.
“For printing the smart cards, the details will be taken from the database. Hence it cannot keep changing. Moreover, the removal of access was also to reduce load on the server,” the official claimed.
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Another official, however, said that the move was also to make all employees in the districts to focus on the work for smart cards instead of entertaining requests for linking of Aadhaar and other updates.
The senior official said that requests for inclusion of family members and address changes could be done once the smart cards are issued.
On issuance of smart cards for those ration cardholders who have not linked their Aadhaar, the official said that they would not be receiving smart cards in April and their cases would be decided later.