Maharashtra government to trim ration card holders' list off duplicate entries, targets yearly savings of Rs2,500 crore

The state government will soon launch a drive to remove duplicate names from the list of beneficiaries of the public distribution system. The project, which is likely to be completed in the next three to four months, is expected to plug leakages to the tune of Rs2,500 crore a year.

Elaborating on the programme, minister for food and civil supplies Girish Bapat said the government currently has in its database details of about 7 crore beneficiaries – it has issued 2.37 crore ration cards. "However, in many cases, people have moved to new places in search of jobs or other reasons and got fresh ration cards without getting their names removed from the old card."

Similarly, Bapat said, citizens sometimes don't bother to update their card in case of death of a family member. "This leads to multiple allocation of grains which ultimately enter the black market."

Under the project, the minister said, the government will ask over 52,000 fair price shops in the state to get fresh forms filled by ration card holders. Based on these forms, a new database will be prepared in the next few months. "Once we match the new data with our existing data, we will be in a position to weed out duplicate entries."

This apart, Bapat said that the government was also considering linking ration cards with Aadhaar cards to ensure that food grains reached only genuine beneficiaries.