People will now be able to apply for new ration cards online. The state government will roll out this online application system in Goregaon and Vikhroli and applicants will get these cards in a 30-day window period.
The facility will gradually be expanded across Mumbai and Maharashtra.
"We will launch a facility for people in the areas of the Goregaon and Vikhroli rationing offices to apply online for ration cards. They will also be able to track their applications on the internet," a senior state food and civil supplies department official told dna. The project will be launched in June.
This application can be made on the website of the food and civil supplies department and also on the state government's Aaple Sarkar portal, which is a government to citizen (G2C) interface.
"Applicants will have to scan and upload their documents online in the OTP-based system. Officials will make home visits for verification and original papers will have to be shown at the rationing office by applicants after taking an online appointment, like for passports. This will cut down on the time taken by people to get new ration cards. Under the Right to Services Act, people will get their new ration cards within 30 days of their application," said an official.
The system can also be expanded to allow people to update their details online.
Officials point out that despite the state government regularly issuing circulars for ration cards not being considered as proof of address or residence and for them to be used exclusively for obtaining food grains under the PDS, this diktat largely continues to be breached. Moreover, the ration card is a document which has the record of the entire family, enabling minors to get other identity documents, which leads people to apply for it.
Maharashtra has around 1.48 crore ration cards (or 7.016 crore targeted beneficiaries) covered under the National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013. The act covers up to 75% of the rural population and up to 50% of the urban population for receiving subsidised food grains under the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS).
The total number of ration cards in Maharashtra, which has a population of 11.23 crore according to the 2011 census, is around 2.48 crore. The state government has used an exclusion criteria of Rs54,000 annual income in urban areas and Rs49,000 in rural areas for beneficiary families to be included for NFSA benefits.
The Maharashtra government is working on installing a biometrics-based system at ration shops to cut pilferage and ghost beneficiaries. Here, ration cards of all NFSA beneficiaries will be linked to their Aadhaar numbers and point of sale (POS) machines would be installed in all 53,000 ration shops in the state for authentication using biometric features.
Around 82% ration cards of NFSA beneficiaries have been "seeded" with their Aadhaar numbers.
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