Poor response to portability of ration cards

Tamil Nadu, which is implementing the One Nation, One Ration Card (ONORC) scheme, appears to be an outlier when it comes to the execution of the initiative geared toward attaining “seamless intra-State and inter-State portability” of ration cards.

Ever because the State joined the scheme on October 1 final 12 months, it has been recording lesser transactions than different States. Only a negligible quantity of transactions is being recorded. Consequently, an insignificant amount of foodgrains (rice or wheat) is being distributed by way of the general public distribution system.

One of the important thing options of the scheme is making certain that migrant staff can declare their quota of rations from wherever within the nation with out disturbing the entitlements due to their members of the family residing of their native locations. The Central authorities, in May final 12 months, made the ONORC’s implementation a situation to be fulfilled by the States for making use of the extra borrowing of 0.25% of GSDP.

The Tamil Nadu authorities has allowed households migrating to the State to obtain their entitlements at costs decided by the Centre on the truthful value retailers involved.

Several causes are cited for the poor response to the scheme. A senior official of the State Civil Supplies Department says inter-State migrant staff favor acquiring contemporary ration cards from the State Department to getting their authentic cards transferred to Tamil Nadu. This is as a result of of higher advantages being offered by the Tamil Nadu authorities when put next to their residence States.

In Tamil Nadu, edible oil and tur dal are being provided to ration cardholders, together with rice or wheat and sugar. But underneath the ONORC scheme, solely rice or wheat and sugar are lined. While 5 kg rice or wheat monthly per particular person, at ₹2 per kg for wheat or ₹3 per kg for rice, can be given solely to these holding precedence family (PHH) cards, Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) cardholders, representing the “poorest of the poor”, would additionally get sugar on the value stipulated by the Central authorities, aside from rice or wheat.

The official explains that the authorities additionally can not refuse to problem ration cards to the migrant staff who, utilizing their Aadhaar numbers, first get cooking fuel cylinder connections within the State. One of the requisites to get hold of a ration card is that the applicant should have a cooking fuel cylinder connection, the official says, including that the cardboard is issued earlier than an inspection of the place of keep of the applicant by the division’s workers.

The unwillingness of migrants to make use of the scheme and procedural hassles are additionally cited as causes for the perceptibly low quantity of transactions.

Notwithstanding the state of affairs, the Department is making efforts to sensitise the migrants on the advantages of the scheme, the official provides.