Ram Vilas Paswan, Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, said leakage of grains was prevalent in the UPA regime due to bogus ration cards and corruption in the department.
Kumar Vikram | Posted by Bijaya Kumar Das
New Delhi, June 10, 2016 | UPDATED 09:31 IST
Deleting about 1.62 crore bogus ration cards and streamlining the public distribution system in the country have saved around Rs 10,000 crore of public money in last two years of the Narendra Modi government.
RAM VILAS PASWAN BLAMES UPA
Ram Vilas Paswan, minister of consumer affairs, food and public distribution, said leakage of grains were prevalent in the UPA regime due to bogus ration cards and corruption in the department. "Now, this has stopped after 100 per cent digitisation of ration cards. During the process of digitisation, we found crores of bogus ration cards. There were many ration cards on the name of one person. Similarly, in some cases, there were ration cards on the names of people who do not even exist. We found total 1.62 crore such bogus ration cards which have been deleted now," said the minister.
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Digitisation of ration cards has been completed in all the states. The number of states and union territories with online foodgrain allocations increased to 25, from 5 in June 2014, and the online grievance redressal has now been introduced by all the states.
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SEEDING OF RATION CARDS WITH AADHAAR CARDS
Moreover, Aadhaar seeding of ration cards has also been of great help to beneficiaries. "So far, about 56 per cent of ration cards have been seeded with Aadhaar. All these digitisation and seeding with Aadhaar have helped check the leakage of foodgrain and in saving `10,000 crore of public money," said Paswan.
While most of the states have completed seeding of ration cards with the Aadhaar cards, states like Bihar, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, UP and a few others are behind in this exercise.
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CONGRESS COUNTERS CLAIM
Countering the claim, Abhishek Manu Singhvi said UPA had also weeded out a large number of bogus ration cards and there is nothing great about it. "Actually 66 lakh so-called fake deletions include those cards which are not fake but where the person has moved from the eligibility to beyond eligibility.
So, that is not a fake card, even that is included in 66 lakhs. What is great about it? A press release in December 2015 said in 2012 to 2014, 1.2 crore ration cards were deleted by the UPA government. I do not know how to drumbeat."
'DEPOT ONLINE' SYSTEM LAUNCHED
To check the leakage of foodgrain from the FCI godowns, all operations of the godowns have been brought on the online platform, claimed Paswan. "To check leakage and to automate operations at the depot level, the 'Depot Online' system has been launched in 31 depots on pilot basis across 27 states," he said.
On rising prices of commodities, Paswan said the price monitoring cell (PMC) in the department of consumer affairs is tasked with monitoring the prices of 22 essential commodities. Based on the retail and wholesale prices collected from 89 designated centres, price reports of these items on daily basis are released.
To control the rising prices, in 2015-16, Rs 00 crore was allocated for the price stabilisation fund which was subsequently raised to Rs 10 crore. For the financial year 2016-17, an allocation of Rs 00 crore has been made.