BHUBANESWAR: The State Government on Wednesday launched digitisation of ration cards in the City.
The process for digitisation of ration cards has been initiated on a pilot basis at 206 centres under Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) and Bhubaneswar block, said Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Secretary Madhusudan Padhi.
A registration drive was launched by the department from September 22 to 30 and about 2.40 lakh families had registered for digitisation of ration cards. A token has been provided to each of the registered family informing about the date and the digitisation centre for providing necessary information.
Data provided by the registered families will be cross-checked with the information available in the national population register (NPR) to find out the authenticity of the beneficiaries.
Fresh ration cards in digitised format will be issued to people after a gap of 22 years. Digitisation of ration cards is being made on the basis of the data available in NPR to eliminate bogus ration cards in circulation, official sources said.
Addressing a training programme organised for data entry operators and other officials involved in the process of digitisation of ration card here on Tuesday, Padhi asked them to ensure that the process is error free and completed in time.
As large number of beneficiaries are expected to gather at these centres during the digitisation process, the Department has sought assistance of Commissionerate Police to maintain law and order apprehending disturbance.
The digitisation process will continue till October 22. Implementation of the National Food Security Act (NFSA) in the State has been delayed considerably due to delay in sharing NPR data, based on 2011 Census by the Registrar General of India (RGI) with the State Government.
The ration card digitisation will be implemented in the State in a phased manner. In the second phase, the process will be launched in all urban local bodies (ULBs), remaining areas of Khurda district and district headquarters town. Rest of the blocks will be covered in the third phase. The entire process will be over by July, 2015, Padhi said.
Meanwhile, the State Government has notified the eight exclusion criteria on July 17. These criteria are set to delete all bogus ration card holders due to erroneous registration, Padhi said.