Question : Bogus Ration Cards

(a) whether the existence of a large number of bogus ration cards has been brought to notice of the Government, if so, the details thereof;
(b) the steps taken to check issuing of bogus ration cards along with the results thereof;
(c) whether a large number of ineligible persons are still getting bogus ration cards in their name and thus depriving the eligible poor persons of these benefits, if so, the steps taken in this regard;
(d) whether with a view to checking price-rise the Union Government has decided to change the rules for measurement of inflation, if so, the details thereof along with the justification for the said change; and
(e) the extent to which the said changes are likely to be beneficial for the consumers?

MINISTER OF STATE FOR CONSUMER AFFAIRS, FOOD & PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION
(SHRI C. R. CHAUDHARY)
(a) to (c): Targeted Public Distribution System[TDPS] (Control) Order, 2015 and TPDS (Control) Order, 2001, stipulate that State/UT Governments are required to review the lists of beneficiaries every year for the purpose of deletion of ineligible families and inclusion of eligible families. State/UT Governments have been requested from time to time to carry out drives for reviewing the list of beneficiaries under TPDS. The exercise of deletion of bogus/ineligible cards and inclusion of eligible families is a continuous process and State/UT Governments are to periodically carry out the same.
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As per the information received from State/UT Governments, as a result of the continuous exercise of reviewing the list of Ration Cards, a total of 2.33 crores ration cards have been deleted during the period 2013 to 2016[upto 16-11-2016].
Digitisation of Ration Cards, their Aadhaar Seeding and putting them in public domain ensures that issue of bogus Ration Cards is effectively taken care of.
(d) & (e): Office of Economic Adviser, Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion has not changed the rules for measurement of WPI based inflation. Further, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation has informed that it compiles Consumer Price Indices(CPI) [Rural, Urban and Combined ] since 2011. Further, prices are collected from 2295 markets covering 1181 village and 1114 urban markets from 310 towns across the country. The base year for CPI has been revised from 2010 to 2012. CPI is used as one of the indicators for measuring inflation and checking the price by the Government
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