HYDERABAD: The state government is all set to issue food security cards to 2.82 crore people soon. The plastic paper cards will be pink in colour.
The white ration cards of BPL families will be replaced with these pink cards. The existing pink cardholders, all APL families, will not get any ration card.
At present, holders of the pink card rarely visit the ration shops as they are entitled to only half-kilo sugar a month. “APL families have other identity cards such as Aadhaar and do not require ration cards for that purpose,” sources in civil supplies department said.
To check irregularities in the Public Distribution System (PDS), the civil supplies department plans to introduce biometric system, e-Pass, in HMDA limits soon. According to sources, the department saved 15 per cent rice when e-Pass was introduced in Kandukur mandal on an experimental basis.
Meanwhile, speaking to reporters at the TRS Legislature Party office on Monday, civil supplies minister E.Rajender refuted the charge that the government was supplying rice of inferior quality to schools and welfare hostels.
“We are supplying fine variety rice to hostels and schools. Let the opposition parties prove their charge. Their leaders should inspect welfare hostels first and speak later,” he said.
Rajender said they had registered cases against 2,448 persons and seized 72 lakh tonnes of rice for diverting fine variety rice. The opposition had alleged the Samagra Kutumba Survey (SKS) would lead to weeding out of ration cards. “But the number of cards increased from 29 lakh to 36 lakh after SKS,” Rajender claimed.