One Nation One Ration Card Scheme

On 10.08.2019 the Government of India announced 1 Nation 1 Ration Card Scheme in 4 states, inter state portability is functional in Telangana-Andhra Pradesh & Maharashtra-Gujarat to provide highly subsidized food grains to poor people.

The 'One Nation, One Ration Card' initiative will come into force across the country on June 1, 2020. It is a central government initiative that would allow eligible beneficiaries to avail food grains they are entitled to, under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) from any Fair Price Shop (FPS) across the country. They would be able to do so without the need to obtain a new ration card for the new location.

In order to implement 1 Nation 1 Ration Card Scheme by 1 June 2020 across the country, central govt. has started inter-portability of ration card in 4 states. This inter state portability is firstly implemented between Telangana-Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra-Gujarat. People of these states can buy ration card from Public Distribution System (PDS) shops in either of states.

1 Nation 1 Ration Card Scheme is now operational in pairing of 2 states each. In these 4 states, both intra-state and inter state portability of ration card is being implemented successfully. In 7 other states, govt. is testing intra-portability of ration card i.e beneficiaries can take their quota of ration from any PDS shop located within a state.

Moreover on account of stock management, there will not be any problem. This is because, Food Corporation of India (FCI) godowns have enough capacity and can store 3 months of ration in advance.
 

All the beneficiaries living in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh can buy their quota of ration from ration shops in any of the states. Similar to this, people living in Maharashtra and Gujarat can buy their ration from PDS shops in any of these 2 states. In all of these 4 states, both intra and inter state portability is implemented successfully.

In 7 states of Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Punjab, Rajasthan and Tripura, govt. is testing intra portability of ration card. Inter-state portability of ration card will be implemented in these states by January 2020. All of these 11 states will form one grid where ration card will be made portable. This means that beneficiaries can buy ration from any of these 11 states.
 

 

 

All the FCI godowns have enough capacity and have been made online. The central govt. has asked states to make their depots online at the earliest to track movement of food grains. Food ministry officials have ben given directions to make random visit to test that inter-state portability is working properly.

Currently, the central govt. supplies 5 Kg subsidized food grains per month to beneficiary person. There are around 81 crore beneficiaries of ration which gets food grains through approx. 5 lakh ration shops. This costs around 1.4 lakh crore per annum to the central govt. exchequer. The central govt. supplies food grains at highly subsidized rate of Rs. 3/kg for rice, Rs. 2/kg for wheat and Rs. 1/kg for coarse grains. This is done through PDS as per the National Food Security Act (NFSA).

 

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