‘One nation, one ration card’ scheme: 5 more states join the initiative
The food ministry is aiming to implement ‘one nation, one ration card’ facility across the country from June 1.
Bihar, Punjab, UP, Himachal and Daman and Diu have been integrated with the ‘one nation, one ration card’ scheme: Ram Vilas Paswan
Under the ‘one nation, one ration card’ scheme a beneficiary will be able to avail benefits across the country using the same ration card
New Delhi: Five more states, including Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, have been integrated with the ‘one nation, one ration card’ scheme Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said today.
“Today, 5 more states — Bihar, UP, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Daman and Diu — have been integrated with One Nation-One Ration Card System,” Paswan said in a tweet.
Under the ‘one nation, one ration card’ initiative, eligible beneficiaries would be able to avail their entitled food grains under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) from any fair-price shop in the country. The scheme was announced in June last year.
On January 1 this year, 12 states were integrated among each other and now 17 states are on integrated management of the public distribution system (PDS), also called ration shops/fair price shops, he added.
“About 60 crore beneficiaries from 17 states and UTs can benefit from the ration card portability and they can purchase the subsidised foodgrains using the existing ration cards,” an official statement said.
Standard format of ‘one nation, one ration card’
A standard format for ration card has been prepared after taking into account the format used by different states.
For national portability, the state governments have been asked to issue the ration card in bi-lingual format, wherein besides the local langauge, the other language could be Hindi or English.
The states have also been told to have a 10-digit standard ration card number, wherein first two digits will be state code and the next two digits will be running ration card numbers.
Besides this, a set of another two digits will be appended with ration card number to create unique member IDs for each member of the household in a ration card.
Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Haryana, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Goa, Jharkhand and Tripura are 12 states where ration card portability has been implemented.
