Whopping 99 lakh new beneficiaries to get PDS food in Maharashtra; here is why

Girish Bapat, minister of food and civil supplies, Maharashtra on Monday revealed that a total of 3.64 lakh metric tonnes of food-grains were saved after linking Aadhaar with ration cards. These food-grains now would be provided to 99 lakh additional beneficiaries in the state via PDS, DNA reported.

Bapat said that 99 lakh more beneficiaries can be included into the public distribution system. He also said that no food grains on ration cards can be availed without linking the ration card to the Aadhaar card after the introduction of the AEPDS (Aadhaar Enabled Public Distribution System).

The Minister stated that 3.64 lakh metric tonnes of food-grains were saved after PoS (point of sale) machines were introduced to 55 fair price ration shops throughout the state in the financial year 2017-2018.

According to the report, Maharashtra has completed 96.62 per cent seeding of Aadhaar. It is not possible for bogus beneficiaries to avail food-grains on PDS. 

Bapat said that now the food-grains distribution in ration shops are fool-proof which earlier had a lot of irregularities. With this new system, around 10 lakh beneficiaries were deleted from the list due to various reasons. These deleted beneficiaries are either dead or have their names in two places. There are also instances of names that were found to be non-existent after the physical visits to households.

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Cardholders would have to link their ration cards with Aadhaar and also fulfil the e-KYC (electronic Know Your Customer) system in order to avail the benefits of PDS. Bapat said that the income limit for the rural areas is up to Rs 44,000 per annum and for urban areas it is Rs 59,000 per annum.

Union Government has provided a quota of Rs 7.05 crores for providing food-grains under Anna Suraksha act. According to the minister the state Government has also provided food-grains at Rs. 2 and 3 per kilogram for farmers in the 14 districts from Vidarbha and Marathwada which are suicides hit districts.