Govt completes digitisation of ration cards in Jammu

Sumit Hakhoo

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Tribune News Service

Jammu, January 5

Inching closer to identify fake ration card holders and curb black market, the government has completed the digitisation of ration cards of families getting ration through the public distribution system (PDS) in Jammu and asked the card holders to verify their details from their dealers within a week.

Officials said there was intense pressure from the Union Government to implement the end-to- end computerisation scheme (e-PDS) across Jammu and Kashmir to streamline the public distribution system, which is viewed as one of the corrupt system in the state.

The department has already digitised the ration card data of each household and ration card holders covered under Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS). The data so digitised by the department has been put on a public domain through registered government sales depot and private ration dealers of the Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution (CAPD) Department, Jammu division.

Apart from photograph of head of the family, each card has a separate six digit number and the same will also be mentioned in two copies of month-wise coupons attached in the ration card.

“The public in general is requested that those who intend to inspect the digitised data can verify the correctness of the same within a week’s time by visiting the respective ration dealer from where they are procuring ration under the TPDS,” said GS Chib, Director, CAPD, Jammu.

Sources said while the process had almost been completed in other parts of the state, in Jammu it had slowed down after the exposure of hundreds of bogus cards.

The data says that three lakh families are without ration cards in J&K and at present the government is providing ration to 19.71 lakh families as per the 2001 Census. At the moment, nearly three lakh families are waiting for new ration cards so that they could be included into the PDS.