In a startling revelation, the Department of Food & Civil Supplies has come across massive fraud in Aadhaar enrolment committed to secure food grains on subsidised rates.
This apart, there is a huge number of unqualified beneficiaries in the list of persons to be covered under the Food Security Act (FSA) in the State.
The Department has come up with the figures that suggest as many as six lakh out of nearly 45 lakh ration card holders in Jharkhand have furnished duplicate Aadhaar numbers; the biometric system otherwise considered foolproof.
“We came to know about this while seeding of Aadhaar number with ration cards being done under our transparency exercise. There are over six lakh duplicate Aadhaar card holders which are now being eliminated,” said Secretary of the Department Vinay Kumar Chaubey.
He, at the same time, also added that in order to make the food supply mechanism clean, the Department was on Aadhaar seeding spree under which nearly 89 per cent of the work had been completed. This apart, as many as two lakh names based on duplicity or failing on eligibility criteria have been deleted from the list.
"Deletion of ghost and illegible beneficiaries is a continuing process. We have removed around two lakh in the last three months and expecting that one lakh others would be removed in the days to come from the NFSA list. The Department has supplied all materials to the DCs and told them to concentrate on the areas where nearly 100 per cent coverage is being shown matching the census data," said the official addressing a press conference on Friday.
At present, total 57,50,857 families comprising 2,59,41,238 persons are being covered under the FSA in Jharkhand. It also includes around eight lakh additional families for that request to the Centre had been sent on June 23. The State distributes 142794.245 MT grains every month under the targeted food supply system.
"We have demanded 12,000 MT more food grains for this purpose. However, work to include more is still continuing at Giridih and Godda and we are expecting 1.5 lakh additions more in few days," said the Secretary. Under the provisions of the Act rolled out in the State from October 2015, 86.48 per cent of rural and 60.20 per cent urban populace are to be covered under the heavily subsidised food security measure mandatorily.
In another development the Department is also going aggressively for Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) in the public distribution system. DBT mode for transferring subsidy in beneficiaries' bank accounts has already been rolled out in six districts for kerosene while for grains Ormanjhi of Ranchi and Mandu of Ramgarh have been identified as pilot.
This apart, GPS fitted trucks carrying grains which can be monitored online by anyone would be pressed into action from September-October this year. The Secretary added that mobile numbers of 25 lakh beneficiaries had been stored with Department who would be sent bulk SMS as soon as the food grain reaches to their respective dealers.