Lakhs of citizens of Ranchi district, especially those hailing from below poverty line (BPL) category, are a confused lot these days as they are yet to get ration cards even though the same are available on government website for the past three months.
Over five lakh people from the district have applied for ration cards that will help them avail of public distribution system (PDS) benefits.
Of them, around 3.09 lakh fall under the above poverty line (APL) category, around 1.72 lakh under BPL and 26,000 under Antyodaya.
But the authorities have been able to ready only 97,000 ration cards, which will come in the form of passbooks, while around 20,000 have reached the villages from the district headquarters for distribution among the beneficiaries.
No wonder, unlettered, poor people like Mamta Kachhap cannot understand why they have not got the crucial document while it can be seen on the state food and civil supplies department’s website.
“I went to a cyber café and spotted my ration card on the website of the food and civil supplies department. This means that you people have my ration card, but are deliberately holding it back,” the tribal woman was heard telling Arun Kumar Jha, councillor of ward 37 under Ranchi Municipal Corporation, a few days ago.
She went on to complain that without the ration card, she was not being able to get 35kg rice and five litres of kerosene oil at subsidised rates and admit her daughter admitted to a private cradle in her locality under the Right to Education Act.
Jha had a hard time convincing her that he didn’t have anybody’s ration card and that what she saw on the computer was a digital ration card that has been introduced under the government’s bouquet of e-services.
After the woman left, obviously not satisfied, Jha told The Telegraph that he regularly received these complaints.
“Every day, people come to me demanding their ration cards. They ask why they are not getting the cards when these were available on the website. Having no knowledge about e-governance, they fail to understand that I have no hand or role in it. The beneficiaries think that I am purposely holding back their ration cards for bribe,” he said.
When contacted, special officer (rationing) Ashok Singh admitted the problem, but added that he had taken necessary steps to distribute ration cards as soon as possible.
“I can assure you that the grievances will be taken care of within two months. The process of distribution of ration cards has already started while a direction has been issued to first hand over the same to BPL families and those residing in rural areas. Thereafter, we will cover the APL families,” he said.
But asked about the delay in distribution when the process of preparing electronic ration cards started two years ago, he blamed the slow process of feeding data.
However, a marketing officer of the food and civil supplies department explained the glitches.
“When the application forms for e-ration cards were being filled up, some mistakes were committed in writing the BPL numbers and pasting pictures of beneficiaries. Hence, the department had to go for corrections, which delayed work. Apart from this, after the RMC wards were re-organised, it was found out that the PDS shops allotted to several consumers were not in their new residential places. This had to be rectified,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
