(a) whether ration cards of three to four crores of citizens including tribal and the poor people have been cancelled as these are not linked biometrically with Aadhar, if so, the details thereof;
(b) the efforts being made by the Government to address this issue; and
(c) the details of the outcomes thereof?
A N S W E R
MINISTER OF STATE FOR MINISTRY OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT AND CONSUMER AFFAIRS, FOOD & PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION
(SADHVI NIRANJAN JYOTI)
(a) to (c): The Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) under National Food Security Act, 2013 (NFSA) is operated in joint responsibilities of the Central and State/UT Governments, wherein, inter-alia the operational responsibilities for inclusion/exclusion of households/beneficiaries under NFSA rests with the concerned State/UT Government. Further, the addition and deletion of ration cards under TPDS is a continuous process and the States/UTs regularly review their list to identify and weed-out ineligible ration cards and to include other left out and genuinely eligible households/beneficiaries under NFSA, up to their respective ceiling limits of population coverage under the Act. Accordingly, and due to the use of technology in TPDS operations i.e. de-duplication due to digitization of ration cards data, Aadhaar seeding, detection of ineligible, duplicate, bogus ration cards, migration, death of beneficiaries, etc. the States/UTs have deleted a total of about 4.39 Crore ineligible, duplicate and fake ration cards during the years 2013 to 2020 so far.
The States/UTs have been advised to undertake proper verification, which may also include field verification of each identified/suspected case to ensure that ration cards of genuine beneficiaries are not deleted or suspended. Further, the timeline given to the States/UTs for linking of Aadhaar numbers of beneficiaries with their ration cards under the Notification of this Department dated 08/02/2017 (as amended from time to time)has been extended up to 30/09/2021. Until then, as per extant instructions of this Department, vide letters dated 24/10/2017 and 08/11/2018, all States/UTs are advised that no ration card / beneficiary shall be deleted only for want of Aadhaar and no genuine beneficiary/household shall be denied from receiving their entitled quota of subsidised foodgrains for not possessing an Aadhaar number or failure of biometric/Aadhaar authentication due to network/ connectivity/ linking related issues, poor biometrics of the beneficiary or any other technical reasons.
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