CHENNAI: The 72-year-old Ranganathan R returned from a three-month journey to find that his ration card has been blocked. While the nearest Public Distribution System outlet simply didn’t know why his card was blocked, the zonal PDS office said that it was done as he did not buy commodities for a long time.
Cards of many citizens were found to be blocked in recent days, in a move to ensure that no bogus smart cards were issued. This has created confusion, as many beneficiaries — particularly senior citizens — find it hard to approach PDS centres time and again.
“We were asked to bring all family members and Aadhaar cards for reissuing. We were told that they wanted to avoid bogus members when issuing smart cards,” Ranganathan said, adding that Aadhaar numbers of all his family members were already linked with the ration card.
“My wife is sick, and can’t really move much anymore. She hardly gets out of the house. I have to somehow take her to the PDS office now,” he rued.
A resident of Perambur, who didn’t want to be named, faced a similar situation. Her family buys supplies from the fair price shop rarely, and her card was blocked for a similar reason. “We linked all Aadhaar numbers last year. We still don’t know why our card was blocked. We were simply asked to bring all family members,” she said.
The card of R Raghavan, a resident of T Nagar, was blocked as Aadhaar numbers of all his family members were not linked. “My son lives abroad, and he doesn’t have an Aadhaar number yet. But our card was blocked because his number was not furnished. So we can’t even apply for a smart PDS card now,” he said.
While the last date for applying for Aadhaar itself is not over, ration cards are already being blocked for not submitting Aadhaar details.
The government had earlier this year made it mandatory to furnish Aadhaar details in order to benefit from the National Food Security Act (NFSA). “...the Department of Food and Consumer Affairs has issued a notification under Aadhaar Act on February 8, which requires individual beneficiaries having ration cards under NFSA to furnish proof of possession of Aadhaar number or undergo Aadhaar authentication to receive subsidies under NFSA (ie subsidised food grains or cash Transfer of Food Subsidy under NFSA),” an official statement said.
The last date to apply for Aadhaar is June 30.
According to the official PDS website department, www.tnpds.gov.in, nearly 89 percent of beneficiaries had linked their Aadhaar numbers with ration cards. Meanwhile, officials from the Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation were unavailable for comments.