Vishal Kant
Almost 50 per cent of ration cards in the city are bogus
The 12-digit unique identity number, Aadhaar, has helped the Delhi Government filter and weed out lakhs of fake ration card applications received by the Food and Supplies Department for food security cards.
In the second phase of the Food Security Scheme, the department had received applications from 21 lakh families having 74.09 lakh members. Of these, 65.22 lakh had submitted their Aadhaar (UID) number while the rest had submitted their Aadhaar Enrolment Number (EID). During verification through the Aadhaar Server, as many as 4.43 lakh UIDs and 8.5 lakh EID numbers were found to be suspicious.
The officials said while verification of the applicants is still on, around 1.75 lakh applications are set to be cancelled as the UID and EID numbers of all the family members provided in the forms have emerged to be fictitious.
“The fact that the unique numbers of all the family members are not authentic, makes it clear that they were intentionally submitted to get bogus ration cards. While we are verifying all the suspicious cases, these applications are all set to be cancelled,” said a senior Delhi Government official.
Unlike earlier, Aadhaar numbers have emerged as an important tool in verifying the applications right in the beginning.
“Earlier there was no fool-proof system to verify the authenticity of the applicants. But now the unique number has emerged to be the first gatekeeper in filtering the applications. The moment these numbers are cross verified with the Aadhaar Server, it throws up all the suspicious cases instantly that includes mismatch in the demographic details,” an official said.
The department is now verifying all the suspicious cases before taking a final call on these applications. They admit there could be some revision in the list due to mistakes at data entry stage on part of the department operators. The mismatch verification is being done keeping in mind certain parameters like names, gender and age of the family members in the applications, officials said. The revision of ration cards takes place every 6-7 years. Officials insist its is important to ensure that only the right people get ration card in the new food security regime as the quantity of entitlements for all beneficiary families would be fixed depending on the number of members each family has.
Ever since the Food Security Act was implemented in September last year and the process of verification of the existing ration cards launched, around 8.5 lakh existing ration cards – almost 50 per cent of the total – in the city have been discovered to be bogus.
Allotment of foodgrains against these ration card holders to the ration shop owners have been stopped in phases. The Delhi Government is saving around Rs. 50 crore per month due to prevention of this leakage, officials said.