Four more States/Union Territories, namely Jammu & Kashmir, Manipur, Nagaland and Uttarakhand, are going to join the One Nation One Ration Card scheme. Taking to Twitter, BJP national president JP Nadda congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Minister of Food & Public Distribution Ram Vilas Paswan for the move. Earlier, the ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution has reviewed the One Nation One Ration Card plan.
“Congratulations to Prime Minister Narendra Modi Ji and Ram Vilas Paswan Ji as three more States, Manipur, Nagaland and Uttarakhand and Union Territory Jammu and Kashmir also joined the ‘One Nation One Ration Card’. This ensures food security to 65 Crore people in 24 States with the aim to cover the whole nation by 31st March 2021,” he tweeted.
“While taking note of the requisite technical readiness of four more States/UT of Jammu & Kashmir, Manipur, Nagaland and Uttarakhand, the Department of Food & Public Distribution has enabled the integration of these 4 States/UT with existing 20 States/UTs for the National Portability,” the ministry said.
As per the statement issued by the ministry, with this, about 65 crores (80%) of total NFSA population is now potentially enabled for receiving food grains anywhere in these States/UTs through national portability of ration cards. Remaining States/UTs are targeted to be integrated in national portability by March 2021.
The One Nation One Ration Card is an ambitious plan and endeavour of DoFPD, to ensure the delivery of food security entitlements to all beneficiaries covered under the National Food Security Act, 2013 (NFSA), irrespective of their physical location anywhere in the country, by implementing nation-wide portability of ration cards under the ongoing central sector scheme on ‘Integrated Management of Public Distribution System (IM-PDS)’ in association with all States/UTs.
Through this system, the migratory NFSA beneficiaries who frequently change their place of dwelling in search of temporary employments, etc. are now enabled with an option to lift their entitled quota of food grains from any Fair Price Shop (FPS) of their choice anywhere in the country by using their same/existing ration card with biometric/Aadhaar based authentication on an electronic Point of Sale (ePoS) device installed at the FPSs.
The 24 States/UTs which are part of the scheme are Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Telangana, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.