STAFF REPORTER
GUWAHATI: The State Government will implement the ONORC (One Nation One Ration Card) system from Monday in phases. It will enable cardholders to avail of food grains from fair price shops anywhere in India, besides checking their leakage.
In the new system, a ration cardholder can avail of commodities from fair price shops only if his ration card has an Aadhaar number linked. However, the major hurdle in the state is that only 28 per cent of cardholders have Aadhaar numbers linked with their ration cards.
Talking to the media here on Saturday, Food and Civil Supplies Minister Ranjeet Dass said, "The state has 58.90 lakh ration cardholders benefitting 2.50 crore people. The Government of India is implementing the ONORC. This system will enable an eligible beneficiary to avail of food grains from fair price shops anywhere in the country. We will start this system in 100 fair-price shops in the Kamrup (M) district.
"Around 70 per cent of people of the state have Aadhaar cards, and around 28 per cent of them have their Aadhaar number linked with ration cards. One cannot avail of commodities from fair price shops if his ration card does not have an Aadhaar number link.
"We appeal to every cardholder of the state to give his Aadhaar number to their nearest fair price shop. We will provide an e-PoS (electronic-Point of Sale) device to every fair-price shop. A cardholder has to give his Aadhaar number to the fair price shop and register his thumb impression (biometric) in the e-PoS device to get commodities.
"Other family members of the ration cardholders should also give their Aadhaar numbers and thumb impressions on the e-PoS device. It will enable them to avail of commodities in parts from different places in India. If a person staying outside Assam needs 10 kg of rice from his total allotment of 25 kg, he can avail of ten kg, and his family members can avail of the remaining 15 kg at their residential place. In such cases, the thumb impression identifies the genuineness of the cardholder or his family members.
"This device will do away with the problem of bogus ration cardholders. The e-PoS devices have deleted 10-15 per cent of bogus ration cards in the country so far. Full-fledged implementation of the ONORC in the state will need four to six months. After our appeal to the ineligible cardholders to surrender their ration cards, around 1.26 lakh families in the state have either surrendered their cards or got their names deleted. I think two to three lakh such ineligible cardholders will get their names deleted after the full-fledged implementation of the ONORC."
He said that this system would also eliminate the allegation of a short supply of food grains to beneficiaries as the quantity given would be uploaded in the portals of the Government of India and that of the State Food and Civil Supplies Department.
Also Read: 233 Ration Cards Surrendered Across Assam by Affluent Families, District wise Breakdown Inside
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