STAFF REPORTER
GUWAHATI: The Food, Civil Supplies and Consumers' Affairs (FCS&CA) Department in the state cancelled over 1.70 lakh bogus ration cards in the past three years. An FCS&CA official said that the department had deleted or cancelled 135250 bogus ration cards in 2018, 22412 in 2019 and 12395 in 2020. In all, 170057 fake ration cards got deleted during the last three years.
Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Minister Ranjeet Kumar Dass appealed to the people to give up ration cards whose annual income exceeds Rs 1 lakh. Responding to the minister's plea, around 6,000 undeserving beneficiaries have surrendered their ration cards so far.
Since one nation, one ration card (ONORC) got started in Assam, the detection of bogus ration cards will be easier now. The Electronic Point of Sale (e-PoS) will also be a reality in every fair price shop in the state. It will help identify the bogus ration cards as e-PoS are Aadhaar linked.
Assam has 58,91,353 ration cards, and the number of beneficiaries is 25093650. And 28.3 per cent of the ration cards in the state are Aadhaar-seeded ones.
Justice (Retd) PG Agarwala Commission did say in its report that the state had lakhs of bogus ration cards. The state has 36987 fair price shops.
Also Read: 233 Ration Cards Surrendered Across Assam by Affluent Families, District wise Breakdown Inside
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