No End to Ration Card Woes

No End to Ration Card Woes

23 October 2009

The district has not yet seen the end of the distribution of permanent ration cards, a process that commenced in 2004. 

Temporary ration cards were distributed after taking a survey to identify beneficiaries for Below Poverty Line (BPL) and Above Poverty Line (APL). Currently, the first phase of issuing ration cards with photographs is in progress. It has been completed in Puttur, Sullia, Belthangady, and Bantwal and has just commenced in Mangalore. 

However, beneficiaries have noted dozens of errors in the ration cards issued. Now, they have to run around trying to get errors such as incorrect address, names of beneficiaries, age, house number, and so on corrected.

The officials in the department of civil supplies are not aware of how these errors appeared in the cards. A private firm in Bangalore had printed these cards, and now, the cards have to be sent to Bangalore to get these errors corrected.