List of illegal LPG consumers in Karnataka may be out in 15 days

The food and civil supplies department is still unable to fix a deadline to release the list of illegal ration card holders and LPG consumers in Karnataka.

That is no surprise as DNA has found out that the department has committed errors at all stages of building the database.

By the end of February 28, it had received more than three crore documents. After the officials collected the data, the sorting work started. Electricity bills were given to the respective electricity supply companies in the state, LPG consumer identity documents were given to oil and petroleum companies and ration cards were validated by the department itself.

“When the work of validation started, getting data corrected by each of the distribution and oil companies proved a heavy task. While the oil companies kept sending the data, they did not match with our records and the electricity bills. This is why the process got delayed,” said BA Harish Gowda, secretary, food and civil supplies department.

In rural areas, the department validated the ration cards with property documents. There were many stumbling blocks, said a source. Verifying property documents was another big task as it had to be done with the district development authorities and at taluk level to get the correct information.

Gowda admitted that the data entry work was shoddy at the preliminary stages. “Our officials made many mistakes during the data entry stage. We are re-doing it to ensure that it is error-free. We will avoid any problem in future,” he said.

However, he said that the data entry for urban areas has almost been completed and the department would be able to publish the list for urban areas in another 15 days.

“The whole exercise was like someone taking an untrodden path. The department faces the huge task of checking the documents. So it is taking time. But we do not want any errors in the final list. We don’t want to inconvenience people,” said Gowda.