Union Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, Ram Vilas Paswan has announced on Friday that five more states have joined the central government’s ‘one nation one ration card’ scheme taking the total ration card portability to 17 states and Union territories helping 60 crore beneficiaries.
Taking to Twitter, Paswan said: “Today, 5 more states — Bihar, UP, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Daman and Diu — have been integrated with One Nation-One Ration Card System.”
Today 5 more states – Bihar, UP, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Daman & Diu have been integrated with One Nation One Ration Card System. On 1st January 2020, 12 States were integrated amongst eachother and now 17 States are on Integrated Management of PDS@narendramodi
— Ram Vilas Paswan (@irvpaswan) May 1, 2020
On January 1st this year, 12 states were integrated with each other and now 17 states are on integrated management of the public distribution system (PDS), also called ration shops/fair price shops, he added.
12 state where ‘one nation one ration card’ portability has been implemented
Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Haryana, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Goa, Jharkhand and Tripura were the 12 states where ration card portability had been implemented. “About 60 crore beneficiaries from 17 states and UTs can benefit from the ration card portability and they can purchase the subsidised foodgrains using the existing ration cards,” an official statement said.
According to the statement, the ministry has decided to integrate the five states after assessing their technical preparedness. The state officials were given technical assistance and training for the same. Meanwhile, the five states have been asked to immediately begin monitoring of the new system and the Centre is pursuing with other states to join the ration card portability system at the earliest, the statement added.
One nation one ration card scheme
The central government has given a deadline of June 30, 2020, to the states and the Union Territories for rolling out one nation one ration card system. This scheme is will allow the beneficiaries to buy subsidized food grains from ration shops under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) from any Fair Price Shop (FPS) in the country, using the same ration card. This would be made available after biometric/Aadhaar authentication on ePoS (electronic Point of Sale) devices.
Number of people covered under the National Food Security Act (NFSA)
As per the data provided by PIB, NFSA currently provides coverage for about 81.34 Crore people across the country, who will now be able to take advantage of the ‘One Nation One Ration Card’ Scheme by getting subsidised foodgrains of 5 kilos per person at Rs 1-3/kg.
Recently, the Supreme Court had asked the Centre to consider the feasibility of ‘temporarily’ adopting the ‘one nation, one ration card’ scheme during the ongoing coronavirus lockdown period to enable the migrant workers and economically weaker sections (EWS) get subsidised foodgrain.
