BANGALORE: The state government might soon declare an amnesty scheme for people who have fake or duplicate BPL ration cards.
This scheme is expected to give a 45-day window to such people to own up and escape criminal proceedings. The Food and Civil Supplies Department has sent a proposal on the same to the government, after its officials met CM Siddaramaiah.
On Sunday, Food and Civil Supplies Commissioner Harsh Gupta visited a fair price shop in Gayathri Nagar after having detected 25 cards with dubious biometric data in the area. However, though food inspectors spent three hours trying to locate the houses of the card-holders, they were unsuccessful. The shopkeeper was ultimately booked and his licence suspended. “The information was based on a biometric reduplication report which showed that biometrics like fingerprints were duplicated across families. In some cases, passport photos were used instead of the mandatory live photo from a webcam. There were mistakes in the register at the shop as well,” Gupta said.
Gupta said action would be taken against the private franchisee which had issued the bogus cards as well as the food inspector who approved them. According to department estimates, around 10-15 per cent of the 2.75 lakh BPL ration cards are bogus.
The biometric method is only one way of checking the cards and can be easily bypassed.