Nisha Nambiar | TNN | Updated: Apr 15, 2018, 10:51 IST
Nirmala Rajput, a daily wager, from Guruwar Peth has also been denied her mandatory ration by a fair price shopowner in her area for over a month now due to the problem with the authentication of her fingerprint.
PUNE: Navabai Ansari, a maid from Mangalwar Peth, is a harassed woman. It has been over two months now, but the fair price shopowner in her area won’t give her food grains as her husband’s Aadhaar and the ration card are not linked.
Ansari and Rajput are among hordes of other citizens who have been made to run from pillar to post to get their Aadhaar updated or linked to ration card, but to no avail. For them, skipping a day’s work means reduced income, thus, lesser money to take care of their families.
For instance, Ansari has a family of six. “Till the documents are linked, how am I supposed to feed them,” she said, while expressing her helplessness in the entire ordeal.
As the complaint to the public distribution office failed to yield any result, these women have resorted to protest against the government’s inhumane approach. They want the names of Public Distribution System (PDS) beneficiaries should be displayed outside every fair price shop and no beneficiary should be denied the ration due to Aadhaar.
These people are appalled that they have been denied their ration in the home turf of guardian minister Girish Bapat, who is also the food and civil supplies minister.
The new system where ration card holders are given PDS supplies through point of sale machines linked to their Aadhaar card has come under sharp criticism. “The death of Santoshi Kumari, an 11-year-old girl from Karimati village in Jharkhand, is really heartbreaking. The girl died due to starvation after her family’s ration card was cancelled due to non-linkage with Aadhaar card,” vice-president of Janwadi Mahila Sanghatana Kiran Moghe, who is leading the protest, said.
Moghe said the new Aadhaar-linked PoS machines at fair price shops has resulted in chaos. “We just want that PDS beneficiaries should not be denied ration at any cost and if the authentication has to be made mandatory, the government should find better ways to go about it,” she added.
The protesters said the beneficiaries without gas connections have been forced to buy kerosene from the black market at Rs 80/litre. At the fair price shop, it costs nothing more than Rs 20.
Moghe says many workers are unable to get Aadhaar cards because their fingerprints are not recorded due to the poor condition of their hands. “Due to this, they are unable to authenticate their Aadhaar cards, leading to denial of food grains and are forced to take tokens and stand in long queues at the zonal offices, leading to loss of pay,” she added.
Another activists Hirabai Ghonge said, “We will be giving a consolidated list of all those deprived of daily ration to the FDO and ensure that their ration supply is started immediately. We would ensure that there is public reading of all the names in the list. We would continue our protests if any one is deprived of ration.”
