Punjab, Himachal, UP, Bihar included in ‘one nation, one ration card’ plan

Vibha Sharma

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Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 1

The government has extended the ‘one nation, one ration card’ plan to Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Dadra and Nagar Haveli, taking the total number of states/UTs under the scheme to 17.

Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Ram Vilas Paswan, after reviewing the progress of the implementation of national portability of ration card holders under the “one nation, one ration card” plan and taking note of the requisite technical readiness of these states and UTs approved their integration with the national cluster, said officials.

The 12 states which were on-board earlier are Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Kerala, Karnataka Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Telangana and Tripura.

With this, the facility of national/inter-state portability would be available to nearly 60 crore NFSA beneficiaries of 17 states/UTs. They may now lift their entitled quota of food grains from any fair price shop of their choice, anywhere in these states/UTs by using same/existing ration card under ‘one nation, one ration card’ plan.

The department has shared the necessary guidelines/instructions for the implementation of national portability and has also imparted the requisite orientation trainings to the officers/technical teams of these states/UTs, said the officials.

While the new states have been informed that required web services for inter-state transactions and their monitoring through central dashboards had been activated with immediate effect, all the 17 states/UTs concerned have been requested to formally commence seamless inter-state/national portability operations in a single cluster with effect from Friday or at the earliest, depending upon their on-field readiness.

The officials further said constant efforts were being made to expand the reach of national portability under the ‘one nation, one ration card’ plan to the beneficiaries of other states/UTs as per the readiness of the respective state/UT governments.