Jharkhand Food and Civil Supplies Minister Saryu Roy referring to a recent letter issued by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, has said that his directions given about PDS in Jharkhand have been vindicated.
The letter written to all the States on October 24 clarified the Ministry’s stand in a situation in which any beneficiary fails to furnish its Aadhaar number or the same could not be authenticated biometrically.
“The Center has stamped my opinion given about ensuring ration to beneficiaries without Aadhaar card or thumb verification done by the biometric machines.
The Department has issued clear direction that such persons cannot be denied ration and they can be provided benefits under NFSA though making identifications in alternate ways. Provision of an exception register with the PDS dealer is there where due to technical snag or network error beneficiary’s authentication could not be done,” said Roy on Friday who had also met UIDAI’s CEO Ajay Bhushan Pandey in New Delhi in this regard.
The letter issued by Joint Secretary Pramod Kumar Tiwari has referred to the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 which requires the individual beneficiaries having ration card under NFSA to furnish proof of its possession or undergo authentication to receive subsidies.
“The notification further provides that till the Aadhaar is assigned to the beneficiaries of the subsidies under NFSA, the entitlements under NFSA shall be given to such individuals on production of ration card and either Aadhaar enrollment ID slip or copy of his/her request made to the State Government for Aadhaar Enrolment along with any of the 8 documents listed in the said notification,” reads the direction.
It does on directing the functionaries of the State Government to not to deny food grains or deletion of names of family from the ration card database only on the ground of non-possession of Aadhaar and has termed any such step “contrary to the aforesaid Notification”.
The latest direction which is a reiteration of earlier order holds importance in the light of series of reported hunger deaths have taken place in different parts of the State in recently.
In almost cases, it has been learnt that beneficiaries’ names were either deleted from the list or their ration cards were suspended for several months, denying them with their monthly entitlements.