PDS database beneficiaries in J&K to be verified

Jammu, Dec 25: To weed out ineligible beneficiaries, a five-member panel will conduct verification of all beneficiaries enrolled in the Public Distribution System (PDS) database in every district of J&K.

To be constituted at the district level, amid reports about cancellation of 1.27 lakh fake ration cards during 2013-2024, these panels will verify the eligibility of all beneficiaries enrolled in the database, in light of applicable rules and ensure weeding out of ineligible beneficiaries there from.

These committees have been given one month’s time to submit their reports in this regard to the Department of Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs.

Besides weeding out ineligible beneficiaries, the panels will also ensure inclusion of left-out eligible beneficiaries, if any identified, in appropriate groups or categories under PDS.

Each district level such panel will comprise Deputy Commissioner of the district concerned as chairperson and Assistant Commissioner, Revenue; Assistant Commissioner, Development and District Social Welfare Officer as its members.

Assistant Director, Food and Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs (FCS & CA) will be the member secretary. The chairperson may co-opt any other member, as deemed appropriate, to the panel.

The panels have been mandated to ensure completion of e-KYC of all pending beneficiaries eligible under PDS.

Notably, recently, the Union Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, Nimuben Jayantibhai Bambhaniya, while giving a detailed account of deleted fake ration cards between 2013 to 2024, across the country, in reply to a question in Rajya Sabha, had informed that 1,27, 872 (bogus) ration cards were deleted in J&K during this period (from 2013 to 2024).

Out of total 5,87,22,894 such deleted ration cards across the country, maximum fake ration cards i.e., 1,93,54,572 were cancelled in Uttar Pradesh, followed by West Bengal 85.59 lakh; Maharashtra 46.12 lakh and Andhra Pradesh 43.68 lakh ration cards.

In between, J&K also witnessed a wordy duel between the NC Government and Kashmir based opposition political parties in the wake of “certain reports circulated in the social media about some Government order cancelling around 1.5 lakh BPL ration cards.”

People Democratic Party (PDP) and few other Kashmir based parties used these “reports in circulation on social media” to slam the J&K government led by the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, thus forcing the latter to come out with a strong rejoinder as well as counter attack against them (PDP and other opposition parties) for “spreading canards.”

Even the FCS&CA Department issued a long rejoinder in this connection denying issuing any such order. Terming the assertion totally fabricated and based on false assumptions, the Department stated, “The figure being quoted in the said video does not even match the actual deletion figure of 1.27 lakh cited in media reports for having been reported to the parliament recently with regard to fake and duplicate ration card deletions in Jammu and Kashmir since 2013.”

“These are in fact the deletions carried out in the past, over 10 years in J&K as a part of reforms pursued by the Government of India across the country. Elimination of bogus and duplicate ration cards and beneficiaries is an essential requirement under targeted PDS control order of Government of India, which is now being established through technology interventions like Aadhaar seeding, eKYC and through field verification,” it was stated.

It was pointed out that as a result of accelerated Aadhaar seeding, pursued by the Department, huge duplication of ration cards and beneficiaries was established leading to deletion of such ration cards and beneficiaries over the years.

“At the same time, bringing the left out eligible beneficiaries under the PDS cover has also been seriously pursued by the Department and this effort has also led to the addition of 8.6 lakh eligible beneficiaries to PDS in J&K since shifting to a dependable Ration Card Management System in September, 2022,” it was mentioned.

As per the information shared by the department, the number of beneficiaries under NFSA, who are provided free food grains every month, has gone up from 66.37 lakh to 66.59 lakh during the last three months in J&K.

“Additionally, the Department has also pursued, in a mission mode, the inclusion of left out JK registrants on e-Shram Portal so that none such registrant who is eligible under PDS for free or subsidised food grains, remains uncovered,” the department stated, while sharing statistics.

According to it, a mammoth exercise for matching of nearly 34.80 lakh such registrants in J&K was carried out in coordination with NIC and every registrant who remained unmatched with PDS database, was approached by the Department of Food, Civil Supplies & Consumer Affairs and Labour & Employment Department for securing their inclusion.

“Of these, nearly 34.40 lakh registrants are presently availing benefits under PDS or other schemes, and remaining forty thousand, could not either be traced by the Department or they refused to share their details and documents, despite making efforts in coordination with respective district administrations,” it was pointed out.

“The Department is making arrangements for providing free food grains every month to 66.59 lakh beneficiaries under NFSA and for providing highly subsidised food grains to another group of 31.81 lakh beneficiaries in the Non Priority Households category, which implies that 98.40 lakh people are presently benefitted under PDS every month in J&K,” it added.

Notably, the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) governed under the National Food Security Act, 2013 (NFSA) is operated under the joint responsibility of the central and the State or Union Territory (UT) Governments.

The operational responsibilities for allocation of food-grains within the States or UTs, identification of eligible beneficiaries’ families, issuance of ration cards to them, distribution of food-grains to eligible beneficiaries under TPDS, supervision over and monitoring of functioning of Fair Price Shops (FPSs) etc., rest with the concerned State or UT Governments.