Bengal launches temporary nominee policy

Kolkata: The state Food and Supplies department has introduced a nominee policy for a temporary period of three months with the aim to ensure that a genuine beneficiary is not deprived of ration entitlement. "Any family not having any member with Aadhaar or whose Aadhaar linking is not possible due to any reason like biometric failure would be given an option to appoint up to two nominees. Biometric of the nominee would be allowed while authentication in place of the family members," read an order issued by the state Food and Supplies department on Thursday.

The state Food department has been endeavouring for quite some time to make Aadhaar based transactions in the public distribution system mandatory and such linking has been completed among 71 percent ration card holders. Efforts are being made for making Aadhaar seeding of the remaining beneficiaries. As per the order, a family will be allowed to have a maximum of two nominees from two separate families. The person appointed as nominee needs to be a ration card holder of the same fair price shop whose aadhar seeding has been completed.

The department has introduced a new form (Form 15) which can be deposited online or in the Food Inspector office. Both nominee and one member of the family has to be present while lifting ration.