Interstate portability of ration cards from April 1 in TN: Minister

“As part of ‘One Nation One Ration Card’ scheme of the central government, Tamil Nadu on a pilot basis introduced the scheme in Tirunelveli and Thoothukudi districts. The pilot scheme turned successful and so the intra state portability of ration cards will come into operation from April 1,” said Kamaraj, in the Assembly.

V Rathakrishnan, Mayiladuthurai MLA, in the debate, urged the state government to extend the pilot project of intra state portability of ration cards in Nagapattinam district also. “People in Nagapattinam district will be benefited greatly if intra state portability of ration cards scheme is implemented,” said Rathakrishnan.

Kamaraj replied that the pilot scheme was implemented in Thoothukudi and Tirunelveli districts with more than 9 lakh ration cards. Among them, nine thousand families utilised the scheme and there were no glitches in implemented project. As the pilot scheme turned out to be successful the State has decided to extend the scheme to the entire State, said Kamaraj.

Kamaraj also said that people who had lost their smart cards will be given cards soon. “For all those who have manually applied for the card, more than 8,000 cards were already given and for those who applied through online the cards will be distributed by April 1,” said Kamaraj.

The Central government earlier announced that the one nation one ration card scheme would be implemented from July 1, this year, and the scheme has been implemented in a section of states. As far as Tamil Nadu is concerned, state government announced that the scheme might be implemented from June 1 and on a pilot basis the scheme was introduced in two districts to check the difficulties in the implementation.

To facilitate the one nation one ration card scheme, the State government had already gone for complete digitalisation of Public Distribution System (PDS) in the State since 2017 and has issued smart cards to close to 2 crore families.