Post Smart Card migration, efforts on to streamline commodity sale

After working on seamless migration from ration cards to 100 per cent Smart Card usage, the Civil Supplies department officials are now working on a new agenda – one to rationalise goods meant for Public Distribution System.

The rationalisation, that will include measures like random checks being conducted on beneficiaries and shops, among others, will ultimately reflect in savings to the government. “As per our estimates, we believe the conversion to Smart Cards has eliminated around 80 lakh fake beneficiaries from the system,” a senior official from Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection Department (CS&CPD) said. 

The official claimed that the conversion reduced the total number of family cards by about 20 lakh cards. According to official figures, the state at present has 1.94 crore genuine family cards. 

This brings up a point of considerable concern for the department. In keeping with the numbers projected, the state should have been saving on rice which is supplied free. However, that is not the case. 

The state continues to maintain the same level of rice supply despite the migration. Asked why the drop in the bogus cards does not reflect in the savings on rice, the official on condition of anonymity reasoned that the state had not altered the minimum scale of supply of rice to all the card holders, post-implementation of the National Food Security Act (NFSA). 

As per the NFSA, the supply of ration is allowed only for Priority House Hold (PHH) cards whereas Tamil Nadu provides rice to all cardholders other than no-commodity cards under Special Public Distribution System (SPDS). The NFSA puts supply of rice at 5 kg per family member, and the quantity of rice will be determined by multiplying it by the number of family members. In TN’s SPDS scheme, the scale of supply is a minimum of 4 kg a member subject to a minimum of 12 kg and a maximum of 20 kg of rice irrespective of number of family members. 

Selvi, a resident of Saidapet, said vendors had informed beneficiaries of the increase in rice supply post-implementation of NFSA, but were short supplying the rice in some cases and forcing customers to opt, pay and buy wheat instead while rice was being supplied free. 

The Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) cardholders draw as much as 35 kg, and there are 18.64 lakh cards in the state. “After implementation of the NFSA, we have stuck to our minimum limit, but the maximum ceiling was waived in order to accommodate the additional members to all the commodity cards. This increases the burden on the system to supply more rice for the cards which have more than five family members listed, which is common in the rural pockets of the state,” the official said. 

“We were banking on the ambitious smart card project which was launched at a cost of over Rs 330 crore by Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami in April last. On completion, the department had migrated to smart cards for supply of goods under PDS. We are coming up with additional measures to strengthen the supply of goods under PDS by ensuring transparency and accessibility,” the official added. Sources said that every member in the family for whom the ration is being supplied had been verified through Aadhaar and all the smart cards issued were linked to Aadhaar. This, the officials, point out as a step in the right direction towards savings in the SPDS billing crackdown. Now, the only method used for billing in ration shops is QR Code scanning. 

When contacted, Food Minister R Kamaraj, said they had not trimmed down the minimum supply of rice as per NFSA but had increased the maximum supply according to number of members in the family. On rationalisation, the Minister said that steps are in place and PDS would soon begin to net savings.

Sugar: 500 gm per head per month subject to a maximum of 2 kg per month. Additional 3 kg is supplied to sugar option card holders in lieu of rice

Wheat: 10 kg per card per month in Chennai city and District headquarters and 5 kg card per month in other areas

Kerosene: Ranges from 3-15 litre per card depending on the location.