Budhni Gope, a Lodhasholi villager, shows her ration card. (Animesh Sengupta)
Jamshedpur: The state food minister acknowledged that some 4,000 ration card holders at East Singhbhum's Lodhasholi panchayat, some 100km from here, had not got ration since June due to grain theft at source, but his department's secretary can't explain how.
Most of the beneficiaries of public distribution system at this panchayat have got their ration cards linked to Aadhaar, which is the state's thrust for weeding out fake beneficiaries and making ration delivery transparent.
Still, as food minister Saryu Roy told this paper, the PDS dealer (Rohit Kumar Gope) and food mafia stole the grain, depriving people of 10 revenue villages their ration.
Asked how theft was possible at a mass scale at the stockist's when the state was so concerned about weeding out individual fake beneficiaries, food and civil supplies secretary Vinay Kumar Choubey claimed their online monitoring system was "foolproof".
Told that Lodhasholi was not getting ration since June despite the foolproof system, Choubey said he couldn't say anything offhand.
"In our state over 90 per cent ration cards have been linked to Aadhaar so that we can monitor ration distribution," he said. "It is tough to say how so many villagers are denied ration for so long despite Aadhaar linkage. It can happen if a beneficiary is denied ration even after getting biometric authentication done at the dealer but stays silent."
Told beneficiaries were not staying silent, he said, "I will ask for a probe."
JMM MLA of Baharagora Kunal Sarangi, under whom this panchayat falls, slammed the PDS delivery. "If something like this can happen at East Singhbhum, from where chief minister Raghubar Das hails, imagine what goes on in remote districts. I want an FIR against the PDS dealer," he said.
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