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A very important and big update has come out for crores of people taking advantage of government ration across the country. The Central Government is running a big campaign to make the country’s ration distribution system completely clean and transparent. Under this campaign, names of lakhs of fake and ineligible people have been removed from the list of Public Distribution System (PDS). After this big action, now the way has been completely cleared for issuing new ration cards to about 3 crore new and genuinely entitled poor people of the country.

Giving information about this big decision, Union Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Prahlad Joshi said that the Central Government has given open permission to all the state governments to immediately connect the eligible and needy families in their respective places with this scheme. The main objective of the government is that the food grains provided under government schemes should not go to the houses of any middlemen or rich people but should actually reach the kitchens of the needy people who are the real beneficiaries of it.

This is how 8.51 crore ineligible people were identified, states started hunter

If we go deeper into this whole matter, it comes to light that with the help of modern technologies, the Food Ministry had prepared a long list of about 8.51 crore such beneficiaries across the country, who were not eligible at all under the rules of the government ration scheme. The list of these ineligible people included people who are no longer in this world (dead persons), many big income tax payers and those rich people who have four wheelers parked outside their houses.

The Union Ministry had handed over this entire suspect list to all the state governments so that they could thoroughly investigate it at the ground level. According to Union Minister Prahlad Joshi, after receiving the list from the Centre, various states showed promptness and till now, names of a total of 2.21 crore fake and ineligible beneficiaries have been completely deleted from the list of ration cards. He also made it clear that this action of deleting names has been taken by the state governments on the basis of their local rules and physical verification process, in which the Central Government has not directly removed anyone’s name.

Currently 80 crore people in the country are getting free ration.

The Union Minister said that to compensate for the space left by the removal of fake names, the states have now been given the green signal to include new and poor people in the ration system. With this decision, about 3 crore new faces of the country will get their new ration cards very soon. Talking about the figures, at present about 79 crore citizens in the country are taking direct benefits of the government ration scheme. At the same time, under the government’s most ambitious scheme ‘Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana’ (PMGKAY), a big target has been set to provide free food grains to a total of 80 crore people of the country, which will be accomplished at any cost.

The game of black marketing of ration will be stopped with the help of e-pos machine and modern technologies.

The government has now come into full hi-tech mode to prevent fraud and theft in ration distribution. The Public Distribution System (PDS) has been completely digitalized, bringing tremendous transparency to the entire system. Now grains are being distributed at ration shops only through fingerprint i.e. identity authentication and e-PoS machines. The advantage of this is that currently 98.5 percent of the country’s ration distribution is being verified accurately and online.

Apart from this, for safe storage of grains, technologies like smart warehouse and very modern depots are also being implemented very rapidly in the country. The government has clearly stated that the purpose of this entire exercise is not at all to reduce the government budget or expenditure. The government just wants to ensure that the food grains from the country’s treasury go only to the poor of the country. With this thinking in mind, maximum emphasis is being laid on making the entire ration depot network digital and transparent.