The Supreme Court’s directive not to insist on Aadhaar cards for availing benefits under social schemes has come as a problem for the Civil Supplies Department in weeding out bogus ration cards.
With more than 10 lakh excess names registered under white and pink ration cards in the district, officials are unable to cross-check details of those who have not submitted Aadhaar or enrolment identification (EID), the number one receives on applying for Aadhaar cards.
An official from the Hyderabad Chief Rationing Office, pleading anonymity, said it was easy to verify information of those who had submitted Aadhaar cards as ID proof. “All the information gets stored in the Unique Identification Authority of India’s (UIDAI) database. So if someone tries to apply twice, it will show that his name already exists,” he explained.
Official data showed that the total number of white ration cards in the district stood at 6.99 lakh with more than 28 lakh persons registered under them. Of these registered persons, 5,10,580 applicants have not submitted Aadhaar cards as ID proof, officials said.
Also, there are 5,38,036 pink ration cards, under which more than 22 lakh people are registered. Together, in both white and pink ration card categories, more than 50 lakh names exist, whereas the population of Hyderabad district is just a little over 40 lakh, they pointed out.
“Aadhaar not being mandatory is causing us much inconvenience. That or enrolment identification is comparable data, which allows us to remove fictitious names from cards,” said M. Padma, Chief Rationing Officer, Hyderabad district.
She said that about 75,000 names of deceased beneficiaries were removed from the white ration card category after cross-checking with the Arogyasri database.
Efforts are on to weed out names of those who have died, migrated, or have fictitious names in rations cards, and submit a report to the Commissioner of Civil Supplies Department soon.
Duplications and other errors in ration cards can be avoided during the enrolment stage itself, if applications for white ration cards are issued at MeeSeva centres round the year, officials add.
