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In a major step that would take India closer to achieving the objective of ‘One Nation One Ration Card’, the Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Ram Vilas Paswan on Friday inaugurated the inter-State portability of public distribution in two clusters in the adjoining States of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and Gujarat and Maharashtra.
This will enable beneficiaries from either of the States’ cluster to avail the benefits accruing to them under the National Food Security Act from any of the two States.
Addressing the media, Paswan said 11 States/Union Territories, including Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, Telangana and Tripura, have implemented the intra-State portability of ration card holders to lift the entitled foodgrains from any Fair Price Shops (FPSs) within their State. These States and UTs are expected to introduce inter-State portability from January 1 next year.
Installation of electronic Point of Sale (ePoS) devices at FPSs is the main enabler of portability of ration card holders, supported by the biometric/Aadhaar authentication. More than 4.1 lakh (77 per cent) ePoS devices are already operational across the country. As many as 25 States/UTs have either completed the installation in all FPSs or having significant progress in this area. Further, more than 85 per cent ration cards (at least one member) in the country have been seeded with the Aadhaar numbers of the beneficiaries, he added.
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