One Nation One Ration Card

Amid the crisis precipitated by COVID-19, the good news is that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's flagship 'One Nation One Ration Card' scheme has been implemented across 20 States so far. The current situation has further prompted the Central government to resolve that this scheme cover the entire country by March 31 next year. But the list of 20 States which have already implemented it does not have the six north-eastern States -- Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Meghalaya and Tripura. While 17 States and UTs including Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Kerala, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh had implemented it till April, three more States - Odisha, Sikkim, and Mizoram – joined the ambitious programme last month. Going by what Union Minister for Civil Supply Ram Vilas Paswan has said, three more States – Uttarakhand, Nagaland and Manipur – will also be added to the national cluster by August 2020. As far as the remaining 13 States like West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir, Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh are concerned, he has expressed optimism that these will be added to the national cluster by March 31, 2021. When the scheme was announced by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the middle of May, she had particularly stated that this system will enable the migrant workers and their family members to access the PDS benefits from any Fair Price Shop in the country. According to her announcement, about 81 crore persons are entitled to buy subsidized foodgrain — rice at Rs 3 per kg, wheat at Rs 2 per kg, and coarse grains at Re 1 per kg — from their designated Fair Price Shops (FPS) of the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS), under the National Food Security Act, 2013. In the present system, a ration cardholder can buy foodgrains only from an FPS that has been assigned to her in the locality in which she lives. However, this is expected to change once the 'One Nation, One Ration Card' system becomes operational across the nation, for which the Government has already set March 31 as the target.

The new system, based on a technological solution, identifies a beneficiary through biometric authentication on electronic Point of Sale (ePoS) devices installed at the Fair Price Shops, and enables that person to purchase the quantity of foodgrains to which he or she is entitled to under the National Food Security Act. While the Integrated Management of Public Distribution System (IM-PDS) portal provides the technological platform for the inter-State portability of ration cards, enabling a migrant worker to buy foodgrains from any Fair Price Shop across the country, the other portal (annavitran.nic.in) hosts the data of distribution of foodgrains through e-PoS devices within a State. The Annavitran portal enables a migrant worker or his family to avail the benefits of PDS outside their district but within their state. While a person can buy his or her share of foodgrains as per his or her entitlement under the NFSA, wherever he or she is based, the remaining members of the family members can purchase subsidised foodgrains from their ration dealer back home. Moreover, while a standard format for ration card has been prepared after taking into account the format used by different States, for national portability, the State governments have been asked to issue the ration cards in a bi-lingual format, wherein besides the local language, the other language could be Hindi or English. Given the fact that the economy of Assam has also suffered immensely due the lockdown triggered off by the COVID-19, the Sarbananda Sonowal should gear up to implement it as early as possible before the new economic hardship does no push the rural masses to abject penury. The other States of the Northeast should also take in right earnest all steps to make 'One Nation One Ration Card' a reality.