State's ration card registration initiative hits roadblock

Kolkata: The state Food and Supplies department's initiative of registration of ration card holders in e-pos machines across the state has hit a stumbling block after it was found that around 4.30 lakh beneficiaries have not registered in the machines.

Each family member is required to authenticate by providing fingerprint in these machines. They have to furnish their respective Aadhar cards so that the ration card is linked to the Aadhar. From then on any one of the family member can withdraw ration for the whole family.

"It has been found that in case of 100 ration shops across the state, only a single-family member has presented his/ her Aadhar card for registering in the e-pos machines. The total number of people who have been left out for this is 4.30 lakh," said Jyotipriya Mallick, state Food and Supplies minister.

The minister has formed a committee to speed up the process of registration of those who have been left out. They will coordinate with the ration shop owners to take the necessary steps.

The matter came to the forefront after it was found that the database of ration card holders available with the state Food department did not match with the database of the ration shops with e-pos machines.

Sources in the department said that till date 13.59 lakh people have registered themselves in e-pos machines that have been installed at the majority of 21,000 ration shops across the state.

The State Food & Supplies department has started installing such machines in ration shops from the middle of 2019 to prevent fleecing of customers by a section of the shop owners.

"It will be able to detect fraudulent practices like giving less quantity of food grains to customers or dealing in

inferior stuff which is not actually supplied by the department," a senior department official said.