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Ration card holders to get online food account
By siliconindia   |   Friday, 09 July 2010, 14:16 IST   |    7 Comments
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Ration card holders to get online food account
New Delhi: To make sure that the benefits of public distribution systems (PDS) goes to the right hand, the government is planning to transfer food entitlements to ration card holders through an electronic system. The PDS will be linked to the unique ID, or Aadhar's central data repository and entitlement details would be updated monthly through an Aadhar-linked mobile phone. This will help the state governments to directly tell residents-who will have to have an online account linked to Aadhar-about their entitlements, a discussion paper with the Unique ID Authority points out. In the new Aadhar-linked PDS, an online account of the beneficiary would be updated monthly with details of their entitlements including details like the amount of food grain they got and the prices. An SMS alert will be sent to the residents Aadhar-linked mobile number, as soon as the truck leaves the warehouse for the ration shop. The SMS may contain the time the truck left, quantity of grain it is carrying, and the latest grain prices. Of the 103 million ration card holders across the country, 65.2 million are below the poverty line (BPL). Under the yet-to-be-passed Food Security Bill, BPL families are assured 25 kg-35 kg of wheat and rice at 3 per kg every month. The other plus, obviously, is reducing the number of fake ration card holders. "Using Aadhar to identify PDS beneficiaries will eliminate duplicate and fake beneficiaries from the rolls, and make identification for entitlements far more effective," said an official with knowledge of developments. As many as 37 million PDS beneficiaries are estimated to be fake. Through Aadhar, the government can ensure their ration quota is not distributed without the beneficiaries' knowledge. The discussion paper shows that the BPL families can use the shop-owner's mobile phone or a few families can pool together for a cheap handset, as low as 1,200. It will be a win-win situation for ration shop (or fair-price shop) owners too. The beneficiaries will have to authenticate their entitlements with the ration-shop owners using their Aadhar numbers. The confirmation of this will appear in the shop owner's account giving government a real-time tab on food grain off take. The government will reimburse the shop owners against the authentication and hence greater the number of Aadhar-based authentications, the greater is the amount of food grain reimbursement. Moreover, if the subsidized food was provided to the ration shop at market price, the shop owner can claim their reimbursement from the government. The government, on receiving the Aadhar-linked confirmation that the entitlement was delivered, would electronically issue a cheque to the ration-shop owner or transfer money to her bank account.

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