Senior citizens and specially-abled can now have nominees collect ration for them
New Delhi: In a bid to remove difficulties faced by the beneficiaries who are not able to visit Fair Price Shops (FPS) the Delhi Food Department has issued an order allowing senior citizens, differently-abled people, and those unable to authenticate their biometrics (thumb impression) due to any impairments can now nominate others to collect ration on their behalf every
month.
The order, dated August 26, mentioned that it is being issued for beneficiaries or households to designate a nominee in cases where all the members of the house are either under 16 or above 65 years and not in a position to visit the FPS by themselves.
The nominee will have to have their card registered in the same ration shop as that of the family designating them.
The nominee cannot be a nominee for more than one household and an FPS licensee cannot be a nominee for any household, as per the issued order.
When a beneficiary uses a nominee to collect the allotted ration they cannot use inter or intra state FPS they will have to use the designated FPS only.
The order has been issued to ensure that no PDS beneficiary is left out of ration shops in the Capital since the government has implemented the e-POS system wherein food grains can be collected after thumb or iris zauthentication.
After the Central Government had written to the states to implement the steps to address e-POS (electronic point of sales) related grievances, the order was issued by the state department.
The department has also stated through the order that if all members of a family are suffering from leprosy, or are differently-abled, bedridden, or affected by other diseases and impairments will be allowed to nominate someone to collect ration for them and those families where every member faces biometric authentication failure despite entering correct Aadhaar details due to any technical error.
The city has a network of 1,998 fair price shops.
The monthly ration distribution in August, started on August 26, as against the usual 10th of every month and in July as well it started late.