Number of family card holders crosses two-crore mark in State

CHENNAI: The number of family cards, which stood around 1.91 crore till recently, had crossed the two-crore mark. As on June 30, there are 2,03,64,386 family cards in Tamil Nadu. Of them, 1,91,53,352 cards are green cards (rice option cards) to get all commodities from the ration shops. There are 10,79,387 white cards (sugar option cards) which could be used for getting all commodities except rice.

There are as many as 66,478 khaki cards (police cards) which are eligible for getting all commodities while there are 65,169 no commodity cards which are used as residential proof. 

Food Minister R Kamaraj informed this in the policy note for 2016-17 tabled in the House on Monday. He said smart cards would be issued to all PDS beneficiaries by the end of the current year.  Aadhaar information was being collected for creating a new family data base which is necessary for the issuance of smart cards under the Public Distribution System.

All fair price shops have been provided with point of sale devices, which would help in capturing Aadhaar linked data.  On collection of such information, a valid and updated data set of PDS beneficiaries would be available for issue of smart cards. 

Later, replying to the discussion on the demands for grants for his department, the Minister said that 50 new paddy drying yards would be set up at the direct procurement centres at a total cost of `five  crore. Kamaraj said that 145 moisture metres would be given to all DPCs to accurately calculate the moisture content in the paddy. Awareness camps and training would be conducted for farmers on how to protect their produces.  The Employees Deposit Linked Insurance Scheme would be implemented for loadmen working with the Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation, he added.