Discrepancies galore in ration cards
SHILLONG: There are allegations of discrepancies in the selection of beneficiaries for availing food grains under National Food Security Act (NFSA).
A lady who lost her husband and is earning the livelihood of herself and her children by engaging as a helper in a deficit school at Polo area of the city and who is increasingly dependent on the public distribution system (PDS) curiously finds her name deleted from the list prepared by the State Government to dish out PDS items under National Food Security Act (NFSA). The irony is that NFSA ensures complete food security for one and all in the country whereas genuine residents like this lady find their names deleted. The NFSA scheme is slated to be implemented from this month end.
Curiously, the genuine residents from the economically weaker sections of the society who were earlier enjoying ration items through their beneficiary cards find their names deleted while those who hardly need them find their names on the list.
In some cases, there are reports that some families are issued two cards instead of one. Couples who are lucratively placed in a union government department from Laitumkhrah were issued NFSA cards whereas the genuine destitutes continue to be wiped out from the list, which is otherwise meant for them.
Sources said that this is happening in the backdrop of a census operation carried out by the State government prior to the implementation of the scheme. As people who find their names out of the list are living in total fear, they are asking what has actually gone wrong from the side of the food and civil supplies department of the State government.
A resident from Dunoon Compound, near Rilbong, told this reporter that he was recently at his son’s place in Bangalore and saw in every southern States like Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu where the Fair Price Shop (FPS) owners send their men from door to door to make home delivery of PDS items and also enquire if any new family is in need of ration cards.The FPS there has the fear of the State authorities. “I knew that home delivery is only confined to LPG cylinders. But in South India I saw that even PDS is delivered at customer’s doorsteps,” he said adding that everything is absolutely opposite to what is happening here in Meghalaya.
There are allegations that the food and civil supplies department officials of the State government have not done any serious home work on NFSA subjecting it to serious blunders.
Besides, those ration cards which were earlier held by a male head of the family have now been transferred in the name of a female head, a rule under NFSA, but there is only interchanging of names without any change in the relationship columns. In case of some cards, it was seen that the son became grandfather while he hasn’t even married and a grandmother became someone’s daughter.
There are also other serious discrepancies as a beneficiary from Lumparing finds her name strangely placed in a Fair Price Shop (FPS) at Laitumkhrah while her counterpart from Mawlai finds her name at another FPS at Bishnupur. The government has also not made clear the criterias of the families subject to the NFSA. The people are still in doubt whether only the BPL families are entitled under the scheme or even the APL families are subject to it. This question has been lingering in people’s mind for quite some time now.